LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 
SANTA   CRUZ 


f      /(' 


ERIK  DORN 


BY 

BEN  HECHT 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW    YORK    AND    LONDON 

Gbe    Ifcnfcfcerbocfcer    press 
1921 


Copyright,  1921 

by 
Ben  Hecht 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  A  merica 


ff? 


To 
MARIE 


SLEEP 


DREAM 


WINGS 


ADVENTURE 


SILENCE 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
PART  II 
PART  III 


PART  IV 


PART   V 


75 


173 


277 


369 


ERIK  DORN 

PART  I 

SLEEP 


CHAPTER  I 

AN  old  man  sat  in  the  shadows  of  the  summer 
night.  From  a  veranda  chair  he  looked  at 
the  stars.  He  wore  a  white  beard,  and  his  eyes, 
grown  small  with  age,  watered  continually  as  if  he 
were  weeping.  Half -hidden  under  his  beard  his 
emaciated  lips  kept  the  monotonous  grimace  of  a 
smile  on  his  face. 

He  sat  in  the  dark,  a  patient,  trembling  figure 
waiting  for  bedtime.  His  feet,  though  he  rested 
them  all  day,  grew  heavy  at  night.  Of  late  this 
weariness  had  increased.  It  reached  like  a  caress 
into  his  mind.  Thoughts  no  longer  formed 
themselves  in  the  silences  of  his  hours.  Instead, 
a  gentle  sleep,  dreamless  and  dark,  came  upon 
him  and  left  him  sitting  with  his  little  eyes,  open 
and  moist,  fastened  without  sight  upon  familiar 
objects. 

As  he  sat,  the  withered  body  of  this  old  man 
seemed  to  grow  always  more  motionless,  except 
for  his  hands.  Resting  on  his  thighs,  his  twig- 
like  hands  remained  forever  awake,  their  thin 
<xmtorted  fingers  crawling  vaguely  about  like  the 
legs  of  8  long-impaled  spiders. 

The  sound  of  a  piano  from  the  room  behind  him 
dropped  into  the  old  man's  sleep,  and  he  found 

3 


4  Erik  Dorn 

himself  once  more  looking  out  of  his  eyes  and 
occupying  his  clothes.  His  attitude  remained 
unchanged  except  for  a  quickened  movement  of 
his  fingers.  Life  returned  to  him  as  gently  as  it 
had  left.  The  stars  were  still  high  over  his  head 
and  the  night,  cool  and  murmuring,  waited  for  him. 

He  lowered  his  eyes  toward  the  street  beyond  the 
lawn.  People  were  straying  by,  seeming  to  drift 
under  the  dark  trees.  He  could  not  see  them  dis- 
tinctly, but  he  stared  at  their  flowing  outlines  and 
at  moments  was  rewarded  by  a  glimpse  of  a  face — 
a  featureless  little  glint  of  white  in  the  shadows: 
dark  shadows  moving  within  a  motionless  dark- 
ness with  little  dying  candle-flame  faces.  "Men 
and  women,"  he  thought,  "men  and  women, 
mixed  up  in  the  night  .  .  .  mixed  up." 

As  he  stared,  thoughts  as  dim  and  fluid  as  the 
people  in  the  street  moved  in  his  head.  But 
he  remembered  things  best  not  in  words.  His 
memories  were  little  warmths  that  dropped  into 
his  heart.  His  cold  thin  fingers  continued  their 
fluttering.  "Mixed  up,  mixed  up,"  said  the 
night.  "Dark,"  said  the  shadows.  And  the 
years  spoke  their  memories.  "We  have  been;  we 
are  no  more."  Memories  that  had  lost  the  bloom 
of  words.  The  emaciated  lips  of  the  old  man  held 
a  smile  beneath  the  white  beard. 

This  was  Isaac  Dorn,  still  alive  after  eighty 
years. 

The  music  from  the  house  ended  and  a  woman's 
voice  called  through  an  open  window. 


Sleep  5 

"I'm  afraid  it's  chilly  outside,  father." 

He  offered  no  answer.  Then  he  heard  Erik, 
his  son,  speak  in  an  amused  voice. 

"Leave  the  old  man  be.  He's  making  love  to 
the  stars." 

"I'll  get  him  a  blanket,"  said  Erik's  wife.  "I 
can't  bear  to  think  of  him  catching  cold." 

Isaac  Dorn  arose  from  his  chair,  shaking  his  head. 
He  did  not  fancy  being  covered  with  a  blanket 
and  feeling  Anna's  kindly  hands  tucking  its  edges 
around  his  feet.  They  were  too  kindly,  too  solici- 
tous. Their  little  pats  and  caressings  presumed 
too  much.  One  grew  sad  under  their  ministra- 
tions and  murmured  to  oneself,  "Poor  child,  poor 
child. "  Better  a  half -hour  under  the  cold,  amused 
eyes  of  his  son,  Erik.  There  was  something  be- 
tween Erik  and  him,  something  like  an  unspoken 
argument.  To  Anna  he  was  a  pathetic  little  old 
man  to  be  nursed,  coddled,  defended  against  chills 
and  indigestions,  "poor  child,  poor  child."  But 
Erik  looked  at  him  with  cold,  amused  eyes  that 
offered  no  quarter  to  age  and  asked  for  nothing. 
Good  Erik,  who  asked  for  nothing,  whose  eyes 
smiled  because  they  were  too  polite  to  sneer.  Erik 
knew  about  the  stars  and  the  mixed-up  things, 
the  dim  things  old  senses  could  feel  in  the  night 
though  he  chose  to  laugh  at  them. 

But  one  thing  Erik  didn't  know,  and  the  old 
man,  turning  from  his  chair,  grew  sad.  What 
was  that  ?  What  ?  His  thought  mumbled  a  ques- 
tion. Sitting  motionless  in  a  corner  of  the  room 


6  Erik  Dorn 

he  could  smile  at  Erik  and  his  smile  under  the  white 
beard  seemed  to  give  an  answer  to  the  mumble — 
an  answer  that  irritated  his  son.  The  answer  said, 
"Wait,  wait !  it  is  too  early  for  you  to  say  you  have 
lived."  What  a  son,  what  a  son !  whose  eyes  made 
fun  of  his  father's  white  hair. 

The  old  man  moved  slowly  as  if  his  infirmities 
were  no  more  than  meditations,  and  entered  the 
house. 


CHAPTER  II 

'T'HE  crowds  moving  through  the  streets  gave 
*  Erik  Dorn  a  picture.  It  was  morning. 
Above  the  heads  of  the  people  the  great  spatula- 
topped  buildings  spread  a  zigzag  of  windows,  a 
scribble  of  rooftops  against  the  sky.  A  din  as 
monotonous  as  a  silence  tumbled  through  the 
streets — an  unvarying  noise  of  which  the  towering 
rectangles  of  buildings  tilted  like  great  reeds  out 
of  a  narrow  bowl,  seemed  an  audible  part. 

The  city  alive  with  signs,  smoke,  posters,  win- 
dows; falling,  rising,  flinging  its  chimneys  and  its 
streets  against  the  sun,  wound  itself  up  into 
crowds  and  burst  with  an  endless  bang  under  the 
far-away  sky. 

Moving  toward  his  office  Erik  Dorn  watched  the 
swarming  of  men  and  women  of  which  he  was  a 
part.  Faces  like  a  flight  of  paper  scraps  scattered 
about  him.  Bodies  poured  suddenly  across  his 
eyes  as  if  emptied  out  of  funnels.  The  ornamental 
entrances  of  buildings  pumped  figures  in  and  out. 
Vague  and  blurred  like  the  play  of  gusty  rain,  the 
crowds  darkened  the  pavements. 

Dorn  saluted  the  spectacle  with  smiling  eyes. 
As  always,  in  the  aimless  din  and  multiplicity  of 
streets  he  felt  himself  most  securely  at  home.  The 

7 


8  Erik  Dorn 

smear  of  gestures,  the  elastic  distortion  of  crowds 
winding  and  unwinding  under  the  tumult  of 
windows,  gave  him  the  feeling  of  a  geometrical 
emptiness  of  life. 

Here  before  him  the  meanings  of  faces  vanished. 
The  greedy  little  purposes  of  men  and  women 
tangled  themselves  into  a  generality.  It  was  thus 
Dorn  was  most  pleased  to  look  upon  the  world,  to 
observe  it  as  one  observes  a  pattern — involved  but 
precise.  Life  as  a  whole  lay  in  the  streets — a 
little  human  procession  that  came  toiling  out  of  a 
yesterday  into  an  interminable  to-morrow.  It 
presented  itself  to  him  as  a  picture — legs  moving 
against  the  walls  of  buildings,  diagonals  of  bodies, 
syncopating  face  lines. 

Things  that  made  pictures  for  his  eyes  alone 
diverted  Dorn.  Beyond  this  capacity  for  diver- 
sion he  remained  untouched.  He  walked  smiling 
into  crowds,  oblivious  of  the  lesser  destinations  of 
faces,  pleased  to  dream  of  his  life  and  the  life  of 
others  as  a  movement  of  legs,  a  bobbing  of  heads. 

His  appreciation  of  crowds  was  typical.  In  the 
same  manner  he  held  an  appreciation  of  all  things 
in  life  and  art  which  filled  him  with  the  emotion  of 
symmetry.  He  had  given  himself  freely  to  his 
tastes.  A  creed  had  resulted.  Rhythm  that  was 
intricate  pleased  him  more  than  the  metronomic. 
In  art,  the  latter  was  predominant.  In  life,  the 
former.  Out  of  these  decisions  he  achieved  almost 
a  complete  indifference  to  literature  and  especially 
toward  painting.  No  drawn  picture  stirred  him 


Sleep  9 

to  the  extent  that  did  the  tapestry  of  a  city  street. 
No  music  aroused  the  elation  in  him  that  did  the 
curious  beat  upon  his  eyes  of  window  rows,  of 
van-shaped  building  walls  whose  oblongs  and 
squares  translated  themselves  in  his  thought  into 
a  species  of  unmelodious  but  perfect  sound. 

The  preoccupation  with  form  had  developed  in 
him  as  complement  of  his  nature.  The  nature  of 
Erik  Dorn  was  a  shallows.  Life  did  not  live  in 
him.  He  saw  it  as  something  eternally  outside. 
To  himself  he  seemed  at  times  a  perfect  translation 
of  his  country  and  his  day. 

"I'm  like  men  will  all  be  years  later,"  he  said  to 
his  wife,  "when  their  emotions  are  finally  absorbed 
by  the  ingenious  surfaces  they've  surrounded  them- 
selves with,  and  life  lies  forever  buried  behind  the 
inventions  of  engineers,  scientists,  and  business 


men." 


Normal  outwardly,  a  shrewd  editor  and  journal- 
ist, functioning  daily  in  his  home  and  work  as  a 
cleverly  conventional  figure,  Dorn  had  lived  since 
boyhood  in  an  unchanging  vacuum.  He  had  in  his 
early  youth  become  aware  of  himself.  As  a  young 
man  he  had  waited  half  consciously  for  something 
to  happen  to  him.  He  thought  of  this  something  as 
a  species  of  contact  that  would  suddenly  overtake 
him.  He  would  step  into  the  street  and  find  him- 
self a  citizen  absorbed  by  responsibilities,  ideas, 
sympathies,  prejudices.  But  the  thing  had  never 
happened.  At  thirty  he  had  explained  to  himself, 
* '  I  am  complete.  This  business  of  being  empty  is 


io  Erik  Dorn 

all  there  is  to  life.  Intelligence  is  a  faculty  which 
enables  man  to  peer  through  the  muddle  of  ideas 
and  arrive  at  a  nowhere." 

Private  introspection  had  become  a  bore  to  him. 
What  was  the  use  of  thinking  if  there  was  nothing 
to  think  about?  And  there  was  nothing.  His 
violences  of  temper,  his  emotions,  definite  and  at 
times  compelling,  had  always  seemed  to  him  as 
words — pretences  to  which  he  loaned  himself  for 
diversion.  He  was  aware  that  neither  ideas  nor 
prejudices — the  residues  of  emotion — existed  in 
his  mind.  His  thinking,  he  knew,  had  been  a 
shuffle  of  words  which  he  followed  to  fantastic 
and  inconsistent  conclusions  that  left  him  always 
without  convictions  for  the  morrow. 

There  was  a  picture  in  the  street  for  him  on  this 
summer  morning.  He  was  a  part  of  it.  Yet  be- 
tween himself  and  the  rest  of  the  picture  he  felt 
no  contact. 

Into  this  emptiness  of  spirit,  life  had  poured  its 
excitements  as  into  a  thing  bottomless  as  a  mirror. 
He  gave  it  back  an  image  of  words.  He  was 
proud  of  his  words.  They  were  his  experiences 
and  sophistications.  Out  of  them  he  achieved  his 
keenest  diversion.  They  were  the  excuse  for  his 
walking,  his  wearing  a  hat  and  embarking  daily 
for  his  work,  returning  daily  to  his  home.  They 
enabled  him  to  amuse  himself  with  complexities 
of  thought  as  one  improvising  difficult  finger 
exercises  on  the  piano. 

At    times   it    seemed    to    Dorn    that   he    was 


Sleep  ii 

even  incapable  of  thinking,  that  he  possessed  a 
plastic  vocabulary  endowed  with  a  life  of  its  own. 
He  often  contemplated  with  astonishment  his  own 
verbal  brilliancies,  which  his  friends  appeared  to 
accept  as  irrefutable  truths  of  the  moment.  Car- 
ried away  in  the  heat  of  some  intricate  debate 
he  would  pause  internally,  as  his  voice  continued 
without  interruption,  and  exclaim  to  himself, 
"What  in  hell  am  I  talking  about?"  And  a 
momentary  awe  would  overcome  him — the  awe 
of  listening  to  himself  give  utterance  to  fantastic 
ideas  that  he  knew  had  no  existence  in  him — a 
cynical  magician  watching  a  white  rabbit  he  had 
never  seen  before  crawl  naively  out  of  his  own 
sleeve.  Thus  his  phrases  assembled  themselves 
on  his  tongue  and  pirouetted  of  their  own  energy 
about  his  listeners. 

Smiling,  garrulous,  and  impenetrable — garru- 
lous even  in  his  silences,  he  daily  entered  his  office 
and  proceeded  skillfully  about  his  work.  He  was, 
as  always,  delighted  with  himself.  He  felt  him- 
self a  man  ideally  fitted  to  enjoy  the  little  spec- 
tacle of  life  his  day  offered.  Emotion  in  others 
invariably  roused  in  him  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous. 
His  eyes  seemed  to  travel  through  the  griefs  and 
torments  of  his  fellows  and  to  fasten  helpless- 
ly upon  their  causes.  And  here  lay  the  ludi- 
crous— the  clownish  little  mainspring  of  tragedy 
and  drama.  He  moved  through  his  day  with  a 
vivid  understanding  of  its  excitements.  There 
was  no  mystery.  One  had  only  to  look  and  see 


12  Erik  Dorn 

and  words  fitted  themselves.  A  pattern  twisted 
itself  into  precisions — precisions  of  men  loving, 
hating,  questing.  The  understanding  swayed 
him  between  pity  and  contempt  and  left  the 
balance  of  an  amused  smile  in  his  eyes. 

Intimacy  with  Erik  Dorn  had  meant  different 
things  to  different  people,  but  all  had  derived  from 
his  friendship  a  fascinated  feeling  of  loss.  His 
wife,  closest  to  him,  had  after  seven  years  found 
herself  drained,  hollowed  out  as  by  some  tena- 
ciously devouring  insect.  Her  mind  had  emptied 
itself  of  its  normal  furniture.  Erik  had  eaten  the 
ideas  out  of  it.  Under  the  continual  impact  of  his 
irony  her  faiths  and  understandings  had  slowly 
deserted  her.  Her  thought  had  become  a  shadow 
cast  by  his  emptiness.  Things  were  no  longer 
good,  no  longer  bad.  People  had  become  some- 
how nonexistent  for  her  since  she  could  no  longer 
think  of  them  as  symbols  incarnate  of  ideas 
that  she  liked  or  ideas  that  she  disliked.  Thus 
emptied  of  its  natural  furniture,  her  mind  had 
borrowed  from  her  heart  and  become  filled, 
wholly  occupied  with  the  emotion  of  her  love 
for  Erik  Dorn.  More  than  lover  and  husband, 
he  was  an  obsession.  He  had  replaced  a  world 
for  her. 

It  was  of  his  wife  that  Dorn  was  thinking  when 
he  arrived  this  summer  morning  at  his  desk  in  the 
editorial  room.  He  had  remembered  suddenly 
that  the  day  was  the  anniversary  of  their  marriage. 
Time  had  passed  rapidly.  Seven  years!  Like  seven 


Sleep  13 

yesterdays.  He  seemed  able  to  remember  them 
in  their  entirety  with  a  single  thought,  as  one  can 
remember  a  column  of  figures  without  recalling 
either  their  meaning  or  their  sum. 


CHAPTER  III 

•"THE  employees  of  the  editorial  room — a  loft- 
*  like  chamber  crazily  crowded  with  desks, 
tables,  cabinets,  benches,  files,  typewriters; 
lighted  by  a  smoke-darkened  sun  and  the  dim 
glow  of  electric  bulbs — were  already  launched  upon 
the  nervous  routine  of  their  day.  An  excited 
jargon  filled  the  place  which,  with  the  air  of  physi- 
cal disorder  as  if  the  workers  were  haphazardly 
improvising  their  activities,  gave  the  room  a 
vivid  though  seemingly  impermanent  life. 

On  the  benches  against  a  peeling  wall  sleepy- 
faced  boys  with  precocious  eyes  kept  up  a  lazy 
hair-pulling,  surreptitious  wrestling  bout.  They 
rose  indifferently  in  response  to  furiously  repeated 
bellows  for  their  assistance — a  business  of  carrying 
typewritten  bits  of  paper  between  desks  a  few  feet 
apart;  or  of  sauntering  with  eleventh-hour  orders 
to  the  perspiring  men  in  the  composing  room. 

In  the  forward  part  of  the  shop  a  cluster  of  men 
stood  about  the  desk  of  an  editor  who  in  a  disin- 
terested voice  sat  issuing  assignments  for  the  day, 
forecasting  to  his  innumerable  assistants  the 
amount  of  space  needed  for  succeeding  editions, 
the  possible  development  in  the  local  scandals. 
His  eye  unconsciously  watched  the  clock  over  his 

14 


Sleep  15 

head,  his  ear  divided  itself  between  a  half-dozen 
conversations  and  a  tireless  telephone.  With 
his  hands  he  kept  fumbling  an  assortment  of  clip- 
pings, memoranda,  and  copy. 

Oldish  young  men  and  youngish  old  men  gravi- 
tated about  him,  their  faces  curiously  identical. 
These  were  the  irresponsible-eyed,  casual-man- 
nered individuals,  seemingly  neither  at  work  nor 
at  play,  who  were  to  visit  the  courts,  the  police, 
the  wrecks,  the  criminals,  conventions,  politicians, 
reformers,  lovers,  and  haters,  and  bring  back  the 
news  of  the  city's  day.  A  common  almost  racial 
sophistication  stamped  their  expression.  They 
pawed  over  telephone  books,  argued  with  indiffer- 
ent, emotionless  profanity  among  themselves  on 
items  of  amazing  import;  pounded  nonchalantly 
upon  typewriters,  lolled  with  their  feet  upon 
desks,  their  noses  buried  in  the  humorous  columns 
of  the  morning  newspapers. 

"Make-up"  men  and  their  assistants,  ever- 
lastingly irritable  as  if  the  victims  of  pernicious 
conspiracies,  badgered  for  information  that  seemed 
inevitably  nonexistent.  They  desired  to  know 
in  what  mysterious  manner  one  could  get  ten 
columns  of  type  into  a  page  that  held  only  seven 
and  whether  anyone  thought  the  paper  could  go  to 
press  at  half -past  ten  when  the  bulk  of  the  copy 
for  the  edition  arrived  in  the  composing  room  at 
twenty  minutes  of  eleven. 

Proof-readers  emerged  from  the  bowels  of  some- 
where waving  smeared  bits  of  printed  paper  and 


1 6  Erik  Dorn 

triumphantly  demanded  explanation  of  ambiguous 
passages. 

Re-write  men  "helloed"  indignantly  into  tele- 
phones, repeating  with  sudden  listlessness  the 
pregnant  details  of  the  news  pouring  in ;  and  scrib- 
bling it  down  on  sheets  of  paper  .  .  .  "dead 
Grant  park  bullet  unknown  26  yrs  silk  stockings 
refinement  mystery." 

Idlers  lounged  and  discussed  loudly  against 
the  dusty  windows  hung  with  torn  grimy  shades. 

Copy-readers,  concentrated  under  green  eye- 
shades,  sat  isolated  in  a  tiny  world  of  sharpened 
pencils,  paste  pots,  shears,  and  emitted  sudden 
embittered  oaths. 

Editors  from  other  departments,  naively  ex- 
cited over  items  of  vast  indifference  to  their 
nervous  listeners,  came  and  went. 

An  occasional  printer,  face  and  forearms  smeared 
with  ink,  sauntered  in  as  if  on  a  vacation,  uttering 
some  technical  announcement  and  precipitating  a 
brief  panic. 

Toward  the  center  of  the  room,  seated  at  desks 
jammed  against  one  another  in  defiance  of  all 
convenience,  telegraph  editors,  their  hands  fum- 
bling cables  and  despatches  from  twenty  ends 
of  the  earth,  bellowed  items  of  interest  into  the 
air — assassinations  in  China,  probes,  quizzes, 
scandals,  accusations  in  far-away  places.  They 
varied  their  bellows  with  occasional  shrieks  of 
mysterious  significance — usually  a  misplaced 
paste  pot,  a  borrowed  shears,  a  vanished  copy-boy. 


Sleep  17 

These  folk  and  a  sprinkling  of  apparently  un- 
employed and  undisturbed  strangers  spread  them- 
selves through  the  shop.  Outside  the  opened 
windows  in  the  rear  of  the  room,  the  elevated 
trains  stuffed  with  men  and  women  roared  into  a 
station  and  squealed  out  again.  In  the  streets 
below,  the  traffic  raised  an  ear-splitting  medley  of 
sound  which  nobody  heard. 

Against  this  eternal  and  internal  disorder,  a 
strange  pottering,  apparently  formless  and  with- 
out beginning  or  end,  was  guiding  the  latest  con- 
fusions and  intrigues  of  the  human  tangle  into 
perfunctory  groups  of  words  called  stories.  A 
curious  ritual — the  scene,  spreading  through  the 
four  floors  of  the  grimy  building  with  a  thousand 
men  and  women  shrieking,  hammering,  cursing, 
writing,  squeezing  and  juggling  the  monotonous 
convulsions  of  life  into  a  scribble  of  words.  Out 
of  the  cacophonies  of  the  place  issued,  sausage 
fashion,  a  half -million  papers  daily,  holding  up 
from  hour  to  hour  to  the  city  the  blurred  mirrors 
of  the  newspaper  columns  alive  with  the  almost 
humorous  images  of  an  unending  calamity. 

"The  press,"  Erik  Dorn  once  remarked,  "is  a 
blind  old  cat  yowling  on  a  treadmill." 

It  was  a  quarter  to  nine  when  Dorn  arrived  at 
his  desk.  He  seated  himself  with  a  complete  un- 
consciousness of  the  scene.  A  litter  of  correspond- 
ence, propaganda,  telegrams,  and  contributions 
from  Constant  Reader  lay  stuffed  into  the  corners 
and  pigeon-holes  of  his  desk.  He  sat  for  a  mo- 


i8  Erik  Dorn 

ment  thinking  of  his  wife.  Call  her  up  ... 
spend  the  evening  downtown  .  .  .some  unusual 
evidence  of  affection  .  .  .  the  vaudeville 
wouldn't  be  bad. 

The  thought  left  him  and  his  eyes  fastened 
themselves  upon  a  sheaf  of  proofs.  .  .  .  Watch 
out  for  libel  .  .  .  look  for  hunches  .  .  .  scrib- 
ble suggestion  for  changes  .  .  .  peer  for  items 
of  information  that  might  be  expanded  humor- 
ously or  pathetically  into  Human  Interest  yarns. 
.  .  .  These  were  functions  he  discharged 
mechanically.  A  perfect  affinity  toward  his  work 
characterized  his  attitude.  Yet  behind  the  auto- 
matic efficiency  of  his  thought  lay  an  ironical 
appreciation  of  his  tasks.  The  sterile  little  chron- 
icles of  life  still  moist  from  the  ink-roller  were 
like  smeared  windows  upon  the  grimacings  of  the 
world.  Through  these  windows  Dorn  saw  with  a 
clarity  that  flattered  him. 

A  tawdry  pantomime  was  life,  a  pouring  of 
blood,  a  grappling  with  shadows,  a  digging  of 
graves.  "Empty,  empty, "  his  intelligence  whis- 
pered in  its  depths,  "a  make-believe  of  lusts. 
What  else?  Nothing,  nothing.  Laws,  ambitions, 
conventions — froth  in  an  empty  glass.  Tragedies, 
comedies — all  a  swarm  of  nothings.  Dreams  in 
the  hearts  of  men — thin  fever  outlines  to  which 
they  clung  in  hope.  Nothing  .  .  .  nothing 
.  .  .  "  His  intelligence  continued  a  murmur  as 
he  read — a  murmur  unconscious  of  itself  yet  com- 
ing from  the  depths  of  him.  Equally  unconscious 


Sleep  19 

was  the  amusement  he  felt,  and  that  flew  a  fugitive 
smile  in  his  eyes. 

The  perfunctory  hysterics  of  the  stories  of 
crime,  graft,  scandal,  with  their  garbled  sentences 
and  wooden  phrases;  the  delicious  sagacities  of 
the  editorial  pages  like  the  mumbling  of  some 
adenoidal  moron  in  a  gulf  of  high  winds;  head- 
lines saying  a  pompous  "amen"  to  asininity  and  a 
hopeful  "My  God!"  to  confusion — these  caressed 
him,  and  brought  the  thought  to  him,  "if  there  is 
anything  worthy  the  absurdity  of  life  it's  a  news- 
paper— gibbering,  whining,  strutting,  sprawled  in 
attitudes  of  worship  before  the  nine-and-ninety 
lies  of  the  moment — a  caricature  of  absurdity 
itself." 

His  efficiency  aloof  from  such  moralizing  moved 
like  a  separate  consciousness  through  the  day,  as 
it  had  for  the  sixteen  years  of  his  service.  His 
rise  in  his  profession  had  been  comparatively 
rapid.  Thirty  had  found  him  enshrined  as  an 
editor.  At  thirty-four  he  had  acquired  the  suc- 
cessful air  which  distinguishes  men  who  have  come 
to  the  end  of  their  rope.  He  had  become  an  edi- 
tor and  a  fixture.  The  office  observed  an  intent, 
gray-eyed  man,  straight  nosed,  firm  lipped,  cor- 
rectly shaved  down  to  the  triangular  trim  of  his 
mustache,  his  dark  hair  evenly  parted — a  normal- 
seeming,  kindly  individual  who  wore  his  linen  and 
his  features  with  a  certain  politely  exotic  air — the 
air  of  an  identity. 

The    day's  vacuous  items  in   his   life  passed 


20  Erik  Dorn 

quickly,  its  frantic  routine  ebbing  into  a  lull  toward 
mid -afternoon.  Returning  from  a  final  uproar  in 
the  composing  room,  Dorn  looked  good-humoredly 
about  him.  He  was  ready  to  go  home.  Argu- 
ments, reprimands,  entreaties  were  over  for  a 
space.  He  walked  leisurely  down  the  length  of 
the  shop,  pleased  as  always  by  its  atmosphere. 
It  was  something  like  the  streets,  this  newspaper 
shop,  broken  up,  a  bit  intricate,  haphazard. 

A  young  man  named  Cross  was  painstakingly 
writing  poetry  on  a  typewriter.  Another  named 
Gardner  was  busy  on  a  letter.  "My  dear- 
est .  .  . "  Dorn  read  over  his  shoulder  as  he 
passed.  Promising  young  men,  both,  whose  col- 
lars would  grow  slightly  soiled  as  they  advanced 
in  their  profession.  He  remembered  one  of  his 
early  observations:  "There  are  two  kinds  of  news- 
papermen— those  who  try  to  write  poetry  and 
those  who  try  to  drink  themselves  to  death.  Fortu- 
nately for  the  world,  only  one  of  them  succeeds." 

In  a  corner  a  young  woman,  dressed  with  a  cer- 
tain ease,  sat  partially  absorbed  in  a  book  and  par- 
tially in  a  half -devoured  apple.  "The  Brothers 
Karamasov,"  Dorn  read  as  he  sauntered  by.  He 
thought  "an  emancipated  creature  who  prides 
herself  on  being  able  to  drink  cocktails  without 
losing  caste.  She'll  marry  the  first  drunken  news- 
paperman who  forgets  himself  in  her  presence 
and  spend  the  rest  of  her  life  trying  to  induce  him 
to  go  into  the  advertising  business." 

Turning  down  the  room  he  passed  the  desk  of 


Sleep  21 

Crowley,  the  telegraph  editor.  A  face  flabby  and 
red  with  ancient  drinking  raised  itself  from  a 
book  and  a  voice  spoke, 

"Old  Egan  gets  more  of  a  fool  every  day."  Old 
Egan  was  the  make-up  man.  Dorn  smiled.  ' ' The 
damned  idiot  crowded  the  Nancy  story  off  page 
one  in  the  Home.  Best  story  of  the  day." 
Crowley  ended  with  a  vaguely  conceived  oath. 

Dorn  glimpsed  the  title  of  the  book  on  his  desk, 
L'Oblat.  Crowley  had  been  educated  for  the 
priesthood  but  emerged  from  the  seminary  with  a 
heightened  joy  of  life  in  his  veins.  A  riotous 
twenty  years  in  night  saloons  and  bawdy  houses 
had  left  him  a  kindly,  choleric,  and  respected  news- 
paper figure.  Dorn  caught  his  eye  and  wondered 
over  his  sensitive  infatuation  of  exotic  writing. 
In  the  pages  of  Huysmans,  De  Gourmont,  Flau- 
bert, Gautier,  Symons,  and  Pater  he  seemed  to  have 
found  a  subtle  incense  for  his  deadened  nerves. 
Inside  the  flabby,  coarsened  body  with  its  red 
face  munching  out  monosyllables,  lived  a  recluse. 
"Too  much  living  has  driven  him  from  life,"  Dorn 
thought,  ' '  and  killed  his  lusts.  So  he  sits  and  reads 
books — the  last  debauchery:  strange,  twisted 
phrases  like  idols,  like  totem  poles,  like  Polynesian 
masks.  He  sits  contemplating  them  as  he  once 
sat  drunkenly  watching  the  obscenities  of  black, 
white,  and  yellow  bodied  women.  Thus,  the  mania 
for  the  rouge  of  life,  for  the  grimace  that  lies  be- 
yond satiety,  passes  in  him  from  bestiality  to 
asceticism  and  esthetics.  Yesterday  a  bac- 


22  Erik  Dorn 

chanal  of  flesh,  to-day  a  bacchanal  of  words  .  .  . 
the  posturings  of  courtezans  and  the  posturings  of 
ornate  phrases  become  the  same."  He  heard 
Crowley  repeating,  "Damned  idiot,  Egan!  No 
sense  of  human  values.  Crowded  the  best  story 
of  the  day  off  page  one."  .  .  .  Some  day  he'd 
have  a  long  talk  with  Crowley.  But  the  man  was 
so  carefully  hidden  behind  perfunctories  it  was 
hard  to  get  at  him.  He  resented  intrusion. 

Dorn  passed  on  and  looked  around  for  Warren 
— a  humorous  and  didactic  creature  who  had  with 
considerable  effort  destroyed  his  Boston  accent 
and  escaped  the  fact  that  he  had  once  earned  his 
living  as  professor  of  sociology  in  an  eastern  uni- 
versity. Dorn  caught  a  memory  of  him  sitting 
in  a  congenial  saloon  before  a  stein  and  pouring 
forth  hoarsely  oracular  comments  upon  the  activi- 
ties of  men  known  and  unknown.  The  man  had 
a  gift  for  caricature — Rabelaisean  exaggerations. 
Dorn  was  suddenly  glad  he  had  gone  for  the  day. 
The  office  oppressed  him  and  the  people  in  it  were 
too  familiar.  He  walked  to  his  desk  thinking  of 
the  South  Seas  and  new  faces. 

"I  tell  you  what,"  a  voice  drawled  behind  him, 
"Nietzsche  has  it  on  the  whole  lot  of  them." 
Cochran,  the  head  of  the  copy  desk,  was  talking 
— a  shriveled  little  man  with  a  bald  face  and 
shoe-button  eyes.  "You've  got  to  admit  people 
are  more  dishonest  in  their  virtues  than  in  their 
vices.  Of  course,  there's  a  lot  of  stuff  he  pulls 
that's  impractical." 


Sleep  23 

Dorn  shrugged  his  shoulders,  smiled  and  lifted  his 
hat  out  of  a  locker.  He  remembered  again  to  tele- 
phone his  wife,  but  instead  moved  out  of  the  office. 
A  refreshing  warmth  in  the  street  pleased  his  senses 
and  he  turned  toward  the  lake.  Walk  down 
Michigan  avenue,  take  a  taxi  home — what  else 
was  there  to  do?  Nothing,  unless  talk.  But  to 
whom?  He  thought  of  his  father.  A  tenacious 
old  man.  Probably  hang  on  forever.  God,  the 
man  had  been  married  three  times.  If  it  wasn't 
for  his  damned  infirmities  he'd  probably  marry 
again.  Looking  for  something.  What  was  it  the 
old  man  had  kept  looking  for  ?  As  if  there  was  in 
existence  a  concrete  gift  to  be  drawn  from  life.  A 
blithering,  water-eyed  optimist  to  the  end,  he'd 
die  with  a  prayer  of  thankfulness  and  gratitude. 

Thus  innocuously  abstract,  moving  in  the 
doldrum  which  sometimes  surrounded  him  after  his 
day's  work,  he  turned  into  the  boulevard  along  the 
lake.  The  day  grew  abruptly  fresher  here.  An  arc 
of  blue  sky  rising  from  the  east  flung  a  great  curve 
over  the  building  tops.  Dorn  paused  before  -the  win- 
dow of  a  Japanese  art  shop  and  stared  at  a  bulbous 
wooden  god  stoically  contemplating  his  navel. 

During  his  walks  through  the  streets  he  some- 
times met  people  he  knew.  This  time  a  young 
woman  appeared  at  the  window  beside  him.  He 
recognized  her  with  elation.  His  thought  gave 
him  an  index  of  her  .  .  .  Rachel  Laskin,  curious 
girl  .  .  .  makes  me  talk  well  .  .  .  appreciative 
.  .  .  unusual  eyes. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THEY  walked  together  down  the  avenue. 
Dorn  felt  a  return  of  interest  in  himself. 
Introspection  bored  him.  His  insincerity  made 
self  thought  meaningless.  Listeners,  however, 
revived  him.  As  they  walked  he  caught  occasional 
glimpses  of  his  companion — vivid  eyes,  dark  lips, 
a  cool,  shadow-tinted  face  that  belonged  under 
exotic  trees ;  a  morose  little  girl  insanely  sensitive 
and  with  a  dream  inside  her.  She  admired  him; 
or  at  least  she  admired  his  words,  which  amounted 
to  the  same  thing.  Once  before  she  had  said, 
"You  are  different."  As  usual  he  held  his  cyni- 
cism in  abeyance  before  flattery.  People  who 
thought  him  different  pleased  him.  It  gave  them 
a  certain  intellectual  status  in  his  eyes. 

His  thought,  as  he  talked,  busied  itself  with 
images  of  her.  She  gave  him  a  sense  of  dark 
waters  hidden  from  the  moon — a  tenuous  fugitive 
figure  in  the  pretty  clamor  of  the  bright  street. 

"You  remind  me,"  he  was  saying,  "of  a  nymph 
among  dowagers  and  frightened  to  death.  There's 
really  nothing  to  be  frightened  of,  unless  you 
prefer  fear  to  other  more  tangible  emotions." 

She  nodded  her  head.  He  recalled  that  the 
gesture  had  puzzled  him  at  first.  It  gave  an  eager 

24 


Sleep  25 

assent  to  his  words  that  surprised  him.  It  pre- 
tended that  she  had  understood  something  he 
had  not  said,  something  that  lay  beneath  his  words. 
Dorn  pointed  at  the  women  moving  by  them. 

"Poems  in  shoe  craft,  tragedies  in  ankles  and 
melodramas  in  legs,"  he  announced.  "Look  at 
their  clothes!  Priestly  caricatures  of  their  sex. 
You're  still  drawing?" 

"Yes.     But  you  don't  like  my  drawing." 

"I  saw  one  of  your  pictures — an  abominable 
thing — in  some  needlework  magazine.  A  woman 
with  a  spindly  nose,  picking  flowers." 

He  glanced  at  her  and  caught  an  eager  smile  in 
her  eyes.  She  was  someone  to*  whom  he  could 
talk  at  random.  This  pleased  him;  or  perhaps  it 
was  the  sense  of  flattery  that  pleased  him.  He  won- 
dered if  she  was  intelligent.  They  had  met  several 
times,  usually  by  accident.  He  had  found  him- 
self able  to  talk  at  length  to  her  and  had  come 
away  feeling  an  intimacy  between  them. 

"Look  at  the  windows,"  he  continued.  "Cor- 
sets, stockings,  lingerie.  Shop  windows  remind 
me  of  neighbors'  bathrooms  before  breakfast. 
There's  something  odiously  impersonal  about 
them.  See,  all  the  way  down  the  street — silks, 
garments,  ruffles,  laces.  A  saturnalia  of  masks. 
It's  the  only  art  we've  developed  in  America — 
over-dressing.  Clothes  are  peculiarly  American 
— a  sort  of  underhanded  female  revenge  against 
the  degenerate  puritanism  of  the  nation.  I've 
seen  them  even  at  revival  meetings  clothed  in  the 


26  Erik  Dorn 

seven  tailored  sins  and  denouncing  the  devil  with 
their  bustles.  Only  they  don't  wear  bustles  any 
more.  But  what's  an  anachronism  between 
friends?  Why  don't  you  paint  pictures  of  real 
Americans? — men  hunting  for  bargains  in  chastity 
and  triumphantly  marrying  a  waistline.  If  that 
means  anything." 

He  paused,  and  wondered  vaguely  what  he  was 
talking  about.  Vivid  eyes  and  dark  lips,  a  face 
that  belonged  elsewhere.  He  was  feeding  its 
poignancy  words.  And  she  admired  him.  Why? 
He  was  saying  nothing.  There  was  a  sexlessness 
about  her  that  inspired  vulgarity. 

"You  remind  me  of  poetry,"  she  answered 
without  looking  at  him.  "I  always  can  listen  to 
you  without  thinking,  but  just  understanding. 
I've  remembered  nearly  everything  you've  said 
to  me.  I  don't  know  why.  But  they  always 
come  back  when  I'm  alone,  and  they  always  seem 
unfinished." 

Her  words  jarred.  She  was  too  naive  to 
coquette.  Yet  it  was  difficult  to  believe  this. 
But  she  was  an  unusual  creature,  modestly  asleep. 
A  fugitive  aloofness.  Yes,  what  she  said  must  be 
true.  There  was  nothing  unreasonable  about  its 
being  true.  She  made  an  impression  upon  him. 
He  undoubtedly  did  upon  her.  He  would  have 
preferred  her  applause,  however,  somewhat  less 
blatant.  But  she  was  a  child — an  uncanny  child 
who  cooed  frankly  when  interested. 

' '  I  can  imagine  the  millennium  of  virtue  in  Amer- 


Sleep  27 

ica,  "he  went  on.  "A  crowd  of  painted  women; 
faces  green  and  lavender,  moving  like  a  procession 
of  bizarre  automatons  and  chanting  in  Chinese, 
'We  are  pure.  We  are  chaste  and  pure.'  A 
parade  of  psychopathic  barbarians  dressed  in 
bells,  metals,  animal  skins,  astrologer  hats  and 
Scandinavian  ornaments.  A  combination  of 
Burmese  dancer  and  Babylonian  priest.  I  ask 
for  nothing  more." 

He  laughed.  He  had  half  consciously  tried  to 
give  words  to  an  image  the  girl  had  stirred  in  him. 
She  interrupted, 

"That's  me." 

He  looked  at  her  face  in  a  momentary  surprise. 

"I  hate  people,  too,"  she  said.  "I  would  like 
to  be  like  one  of  those  women.'* 

"Or  else  a  huntress  riding  on  a  black  river  in 
the  moon.  I  was  trying  to  draw  a  picture  of  you. 
And  perhaps  of  myself.  You  have  a  faculty  of 
...  of  ...  Funny,  things  I  say  are  usually 
only  reflections  of  the  people  I  talk  to.  You  don't 
mind  being  a  psychopathic  barbarian?" 

"No,"  she  laughed  quietly,  "because  I  under- 
stand what  you  mean." 

"I  don't  mean  anything." 

' '  I  know.  You  talk  because  you  have  nothing 
to  say.  And  I  like  to  listen  to  you  because  I 
understand." 

This  was  somewhat  less  jarring,  though  still  a 
bit  crude.  Her  admiration  would  be  more  pleas- 
ant were  it  more  difficult  to  discover.  He  became 


28  Erik  Dorn 

silent  and  aware  of  the  street.  There  had  been 
no  street  for  several  minutes — merely  vivid  eyes 
and  dark  lips.  Now  there  were  people — familiar 
unknowns  to  be  found  always  in  streets,  their  faces 
withholding  something,  like  unfinished  sentences. 
He  had  lost  interest  and  felt  piqued.  His  loss  of 
interest  in  his  talk  was  perhaps  merely  a  reflection 
of  her  own. 

"I  remember  hearing  you  were  a  socialist. 
That's  hard  to  believe." 

There  was  no  relation  between  them  now.  He 
would  have  to  work  it  up  again. 

"No,  my  parents  are.     I'm  not." 

"Russians?" 

"Yes.     Jews." 

"I'm  curious  about  your  ideals." 

"I  haven't  any." 

"Not  even  art?" 

"No." 

"A  wingless  little  eagle  on  a  barren  tree,"  he 
smiled.  "I  advise  you  to  complicate  life  with 
ideals.  The  more  the  better.  They  are  more 
serviceable  than  a  conscience,  in  which  I  presume 
you're  likewise  lacking,  because  you  don't  have 
to  use  them.  A  conscience  is  an  immediate  an- 
noyance, whereas  ideals  are  charming  procrastina- 
tions. They  excuse  the  inanity  of  the  present. 
Good  Lord,  what  do  you  think  about  all  day 
without  ideals  to  guide  you?" 

Dorn  looked  at  her  and  felt  again  delight  with 
himself.  It  was  because  her  interest  had  returned. 


Sleep  29 

Her  eyes  were  flatteries.  He  desired  to  be  amus- 
ing, to  cover  the  eager  child  face  beside  him  with  a 
caress  of  words. 

"I  don't  think,"  she  answered.  "Do  people 
ever  think?  I  always  imagine  that  people  have 
ideas  that  they  look  at  and  that  the  ideas  never 
move  around." 

"Yes,"  he  agreed,  "moving  ideas  around  is 
what  you  might  call  thinking.  And  people  don't 
do  that.  They  think  only  of  destinations  and  for 
purposes  of  forgetting  something — drugging  them- 
selves to  uncomfortable  facts.  I  fancy,  however, 
I'm  wrong.  It's  only  after  telling  a  number  of 
lies  that  one  gets  an  idea  of  what  might  be  true. 
Thus  it  occurs  to  me  now  that  I  can't  conceive  of 
an  intelligent  person  thinking  in  silence.  Intelli- 
gence is  a  faculty  which  enables  people  to  boast. 
And  it's  difficult  boasting  in  silence.  And  inas- 
much as  it's  necessary  to  be  intelligent  to  think, 
why,  that  sort  of  settles  it.  Ergo,  people  never 
think.  Do  you  mind  my  chatter?" 

"Please   ..." 

A  perfect  applause  this  time.  Her  sincerity 
appealed  to  him  as  an  exquisite  mannerism.  She 
said  "Please"  as  if  she  were  breathless. 

"You're  an  entertaining  listener,"  he  smiled. 
"And  very  clever.  Because  it's  ordinarily  rather 
difficult  to  flatter  me?  I'm  immensely  delighted 
with  your  silence,  whereas  .  .  ."  Dorn  stum- 
bled. He  felt  his  speech  was  degenerating  into  a 
compliment. 


3°  Erik  Dorn 

"Because  you  tell  me  things  I've  known,"  the 
girl  spoke. 

"Yet  I  tell  you  nothing." 

He  stared  for  an  instant  at  the  people  in  the 
street.  "Nothing"  was  a  word  his  thought 
tripped  on.  He  was  used  to  mumbling  it  to  him- 
self as  he  walked  alone  in  streets.  And  at  his 
desk  it  often  came  to  him  and  repeated  itself.  Now 
his  thought  murmured,  "Nothing,  nothing,"  and 
a  sadness  drew  itself  into  his  heart.  He  laughed 
with  a  sense  of  treating  himself  to  a  theatricalism. 

"We  haven't  talked  about  God,"  he  announced. 

"God  is  one  of  my  beliefs." 

She  was  an  idiot  for  frowning. 

"I  dislike  to  think  of  man  as  the  product  of 
evolution.  It  throws  an  onus  on  the  whole  of  na- 
ture. Whereas  with  a  God  to  blame  the  thing  is 
simple." 

She  nodded,  which  was  doubly  idiotic,  inas- 
much as  there  was  nothing  to  nod  to.  He  went 
on: 

"Life  is  too  short  for  brevities — for  details.  I 
save  time  by  thinking,  if  you  can  call  it  thinking, 
en  masse — in  generalities.  For  instance,  I  think 
of  people  frequently  but  always  as  a  species.  I 
wonder  about  them.  My  wonder  is  concerned 
chiefly  with  the  manner  in  which  they  adjust 
themselves  to  the  vision  of  their  futility.  Do 
they  shriek  aloud  with  horror  in  lonely  bedrooms  ? 
There's  a  question  there.  How  do  people  who  are 
important  to  themselves  reconcile  themselves  to 


Sleep  31 

their  unimportance  to  others?  And  how  are  they 
able  to  forget  their  imbecility?" 

They  were  walking  idly  as  if  dreamily  intent 
upon  the  spectacle  of  the  avenue.  The  nervous 
unrest  that  came  to  Dorn  in  streets  and  fermented 
words  in  his  thought  seemed  to  have  deserted  him. 
Assured  of  the  admiration  of  his  companion,  he 
felt  a  quiet  as  if  his  energies  had  been  turned  off 
and  he  were  coasting.  He  recognized  several 
faces  and  saluted  them  as  if  overcome  with  a 
desire  to  relate  a  jest. 

"Notice  the  men  and  women  together,"  he 
resumed  easily,  almost  unconscious  of  talking. 
"Observing  married  couples  is  a  post-graduate 
course  in  pessimism.  There's  a  pair  arm  in  arm. 
Corpses  grown  together.  There's  no  intimacy 
like  that  of  cadavers.  Yet  at  this  and  all  other 
moments  they're  unaware  of  death.  They  move 
by  us  without  thought,  emotion,  or  words  in  them. ' ' 

"They  look  very  proud,"  she  interrupted. 

"It's  the  set  expression  of  vacuity.  Just  as 
skeletons  always  seem  mysteriously  elate.  Their 
pride  is  an  absence  of  everything  else — a  sort  of 
rigid  finery  they  put  on  in  lieu  of  a  shroud.  Never 
mind  staring  after  them,  please.  They  are  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Jalonick  who  live  across  the  street  from 
my  home.  I  dislike  staring  even  after  truths. 
Listen,  I  have  something  more  to  say  about  them 
if  you'll  not  look  so  serious.  Your  emotions  are 
obviously  infantile.  I  can  give  you  a  picture  of 
marriage:  two  little  husks  bowing  metronomicallv 


32  Erik  Dorn 

in  a  vacuum  and  anointing  each  other  with 
pompous  adjectives.  Draw  them  a  little  flattened 
in  the  rear  from  sitting  down  too  much  and  you'll 
have  a  masterpiece.  It's  amusing  to  remember  that 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Jalonick  were  once  in  love  with  each 
other!"  Dorn  laughed  good-naturedly.  "Fancy 
them  on  a  June  night  ten  years  ago  before  their 
eyes  had  become  cotton,  holding  hands  and  trying 
to  give  a  meaning  to  the  moon.  Are  you  tired?" 

"No,  please.  Let's  walk,  if  you  haven't 
anything  else  to  do." 

"Nothing."  It  was  the  seventh  anniversary  of 
his  marriage.  An  annoying  thought.  "You're 
an  antidote  for  inertia.  I  marvel,  as  always,  at 
my  garrulity.  Women  usually  inspire  me  with  a 
desire  to  talk.  I  suppose  it's  a  defensive  instinct. 
Talk  confuses  women  and  renders  them  helpless. 
But  that  isn't  it.  I  talk  to  women  because  they 
make  the  best  sounding-boards.  Do  you  object  to 
being  reduced  to  an  acoustic?  Yes,  sex  is  a  sort 
of  irritant  to  the  vocabulary.  It's  amusing  to 
converse  profoundly  with  a  pretty  woman  whose 
sole  contributions  to  any  dialogue  are  a  bit  of  silk 
hose  and  an  oscillation  of  the  breasts." 

"You  make  me  forget  I'm  a  woman  and  agree 
with  you." 

"Because  you're  another  kind  of  woman. 
The  reflector.  Or  acoustic.  I  prefer  them.  I 
sometimes  feel  that  I  live  only  in  mirrors  and  that 
my  thoughts  exist  only  as  they  enter  the  heads  of 
others.  As  now,  I  speak  out  of  a  most  complete 


Sleep  33 

&  jiptiness  of  emotion  or  idea ;  and  my  words  seem 
to  take  body  in  your  silence — and  actually  give  me 
a  character." 

' '  I  always  think  of  you  as  someone  hiding  from 
himself,"  she  answered.  Dorn  smiled.  They 
were  old  friends — a  union  between  them. 

"There's  no  place  of  concealment  in  me,"  he 
said  after  a  pause.  He  had  been  thinking  of  some- 
thing else.  "But  perhaps  I  hide  in  others.  After 
talking  like  this  I  come  away  with  a  sort  of  echo 
of  what  I've  said.  As  if  someone  had  told  me 
things  that  almost  impressed  me.  I  talk  so 
damned  much  I'm  unaware  of  ever  having  heard 
anybody  else  but  myself  express  an  opinion.  And 
I  swear  I've  never  had  an  opinion  in  my  life."  He 
became  silent  and  resumed, .  in  a  lighter  voice, 
"Look  at  that  man  with  whiskers.  He's  a  notori- 
ous Don  Juan.  Whiskers  undoubtedly  lend 
mystery  to  a  man.  It's  a  marvel  women  haven't 
cultivated  them — instead  of  corsets.  But  tell 
me  why  you've  disdained  art  as  an  ideal.  You're 
curious.  It's  a  confessional  I  should  think  would 
appeal  to  you.  I'm  almost  interested  in  you,  you 
see.  Another  hour  with  you  and  you  would  flatter 
me  into  a  state  of  silence." 

Dorn  paused,  somewhat  startled.  Her  dark 
lips  parted,  her  eyes  glowing  toward  the  end  of  the 
street,  the  girl  was  walking  in  a  radiant  abstrac- 
tion. She  appeared  to  be  listening  to  him  with- 
out hearing  what  he  said.  Dorn  contemplated 
her  confusedly.  He  frowned  at  the  thought  of 


34  Erik  Dorn 

having  bored  her,  and  an  impulse  to  step  abruptly 
from  her  side  and  leave  became  a  part  of  his  anger. 
He  hesitated  in  his  walking  and  her  fingers, 
timorous  and  unconscious  of  themselves,  reached 
for  his  arm.  He  wondered  with  a  deeper  confu- 
sion what  she  was  dreaming  about.  Her  hand  as 
it  lay  on  his  forearm  gave  him  a  sense  of  compan- 
ionship which  his  words  sought  clumsily  to  under- 
stand. 

"•I  was  saying  something  about  art  when  you 
fell  asleep,"  he  smiled. 

Rachel  threw  back  her  head  as  if  she  were 
shaking  a  dream  out  of  her  eyes. 

"I  wasn't  asleep,"  she  denied.  They  moved 
on  in  the  increasing  crowd. 

"Men  and  women,"  Dorn  muttered.  "The 
street's  full  of  men  and  women  going  somewhere." 

"Except  us,"  the  girl  cried.  Her  eyes,  alight, 
were  thrusting  against  the  cold,  amused  smile  of 
his  face.  He  would  be  late.  Anna  would  be 
waiting.  An  anniversary.  Anniversaries  were 
somehow  important.  They  revived  interest  in 
events  which  had  died.  But  it  was  nice  to  drift 
in  a  crowd  beside  a  girl  who  admired  him.  What 
did  he  think  of  her?  Nothing  .  .  .  nothing. 
She  seemed  to  warm  him  into  a  deeper  sleep.  It 
was  a  relief  to  be  admired  for  one's  silence.  Ad- 
mired, not  loved.  Love  was  a  bore.  Anna  loved 
him,  bored  him.  Her  love  was  an  applause  that 
did  not  wait  for  him  to  perform — an  unreasonable 
ovation. 


Sleep  35 

He  looked  at  the  girl  again.  She  was  walking 
beside  him,  vivid  eyes,  dark  lips — almost  unaware 
of  him,  as  if  he  had  become  a  part  of  the  dream 
that  lived  within  her. 


CHAPTER  V 

WHEN  she  was  a  child  she  used  to  see  a  face  in 
the  dark  as  she  was  falling  asleep.  It  was 
crude  and  misshapen,  and  leered  at  her,  filling  her 
heart  with  fear.  Later,  people  had  become  like 
that  tc  her. 

When  she  was  eighteen  Rachel  came  to  Chicago 
and  studied  art  at  an  art  school.  She  learned 
nothing  and  forgot  nothing.  She  read  books  in 
English  and  in  Russian — James,  Conrad,  Brusov, 
Tolstoi.  Her  reading  failed  to  remove  her  re- 
pugnance to  the  touch  of  life.  Instead,  it  lured 
her  further  from  realities.  She  did  not  like  to 
meet  people  or  to  hear  them  talk.  At  twenty  she 
was  able  to  earn  her  living  by  drawing  posters  for  a 
commercial  art  firm  and  making  occasional  il- 
lustrations for  magazines  designed  for  female 
consumption. 

As  she  matured,  the  repugnance  to  life  that  lay 
like  a  disease  in  her  nerves,  developed  dangerously. 
She  would  sit  in  her  room  in  the  evening  staring 
out  of  the  window  at  the  darkened  city  and  think- 
ing of  people.  There  was  an  endless  swathing  of 
people,  buildings,  faces,  words,  that  wound  itself 
tightly  about  her.  She  would  cover  her  face  sud- 
denly and  whisper, ' '  Oh,  I  must  go  away.  I  must. " 

36 


Sleep  37 

She  hurried  through  dragging  days  as  if  she 
were  running  away.  But  there  were  things  she 
could  not  escape.  Men  smiled  at  her  and  estab- 
lished themselves  as  friends.  Women  were  easy 
to  get  rid  of.  One  had  only  to  be  frank  and  women 
vanished.  But  this  same  frankness,  she  found, 
had  an  opposite  effect  upon  men.  Insults  like- 
wise served  only  to  interest  men.  They  would 
become  gradually  more  and  more  acquainted  with 
her  until  it  became  impossible  to  talk  to  them. 
Then  she  would  have  to  ignore  them,  turning 
quickly  away  when  they  addressed  her  and  saying, 
"Goodbye,  I  must  go." 

At  times  she  grew  ashamed  of  her  sensitiveness. 
She  would  sit  alone  in  her  room  surrounded  by  a 
whimpering  little  silence.  A  melancholy  would 
darken  her  heart.  It  wasn't  because  she  was 
afraid  of  people.  It  was  something  else.  She 
would  try  to  think  of  it  and  would  find  herself 
whispering  suddenly,  "Oh,  I  must  go  away.  I 
must." 

To  men,  Rachel's  beauty  seemed  always  a 
doubtful  quality.  Her  appeal  itself  was  doubt- 
ful. The  Indian  symmetry  of  her  face  lay  as 
behind  a  luminous  shadow — an  ill-mannered, 
nervous  face  that  was  likely  to  lure  strangers  and 
irritate  familiars.  In  the  streets  and  restaurants 
people  looked  at  her  with  interest.  But  people 
who  spoke  to  her  often  lost  their  interest.  There 
was  a  silence  about  her  like  a  night  mist.  She 
seemed  in  this  silence  preocupied  with  something 


38  Erik  Dorn 

that  did  not  concern  them.  Men  found  the  recol- 
lection of  her  more  pleasing  than  her  presence- 
Something  they  remembered  of  her  seemed  al- 
ways to  be  missing  when  they  encountered  her 
again.  Lonely  evening  fields  and  weary  peasants 
moving  toward  the  distant  lights  of  their  homes 
spoke  from  her  eyes.  An  exotic  memory  of  simple 
things — of  earth,  sky,  and  sea — lay  in  her  sudden 
gestures.  A  sense  of  these  things  men  carried 
away  with  them.  But  when  they  came  to  talk  to 
her  they  grew  conscious  only  of  the  fact  that  she 
irritated  them.  These  who  persisted  in  their 
friendship  grew  to  regard  her  solicitously  and 
misunderstand  their  emotions  toward  her. 

It  was  evening  when  Rachel  came  to  her  room 
after  her  walk  with  Erik  Dorn.  The  long  stroll 
had  given  her  an  aversion  toward  work.  She 
glanced  at  several  unfinished  posters  and  moved  to 
a  chair  near  a  window. 

A  glow  of  excitement  brightened  the  dusk  of 
her  face.  Her  eyes,  usually  asleep  in  distances, 
had  become  alive.  They  gave  themselves  to  the 
night. 

Beyond  the  scratch  of  houses  and  the  slant  of 
home  lights  she  watched  the  darkness  lift  against 
the  sky.  The  city  had  dwindled  into  a  huddle  of 
streets.  Noise  had  become  silence.  The  great 
crowds  were  packed  away  in  little  rooms.  Sitting 
before  the  window,  unconscious  of  herself,  she 
laughed  softly.  Her  black  hair  felt  tight  and 
heavy.  She  shook  her  head  till  its  loose  coils 


Sleep  39 

dropped  across  her  cheeks.  She  had  felt  con- 
fused when  she  entered  the  room,  as  if  she  had 
grown  strange  to  herself. 

"Who  am  I?"  she  whispered  suddenly.  She 
raised  her  hand  and  stared  at  it.  Something  in- 
timate had  left  her.  She  remembered  herself  as 
in  a  dream.  There  had  been  another  Rachel  who 
used  to  sit  in  this  chair  looking  out  of  the  window. 
A  memory  came  of  people  and  days.  But  it  was 
not  her  memory,  because  her  mind  felt  free  of  the 
nausea  it  used  to  bring. 

She  stood  up  quickly  and  turned  on  a  light. 
Her  dexterous  hands  twisted  her  hair  back  into 
loose  coils  on  her  head.  Strange,  she  did  not  know 
herself.  That  was  because  things  seemed  differ- 
ent. Here  was  her  room,  littered  with  books  and 
canvasses  and  clothes,  and  the  bed  in  which  she 
slept,  half  hidden  by  the  alcove  curtains.  But 
they  were  different.  She  began  to  hum  a  song. 
A  tune  had  come  back  to  her  that  men  sang  in 
Little  Russia  trudging  home  from  the  wheat  fields. 
That  was  long  ago  when  the  world  was  a  bad 
dream  that  frightened  her  at  night.  Now  there 
was  no  world  outside,  but  a  darkness  without 
faces  or  streets — a  darkness  with  a  deep  meaning. 
It  was  something  to  be  breathed  in  and  felt. 

She  opened  the  window  and  stood  wondering. 
She  was  lonely.  Loneliness  caressed  her  heart 
and  drew  dim  fingers  across  her  thought.  She 
could  never  remember  having  been  lonely  before. 
But  now  there  was  a  difference.  She  smiled. 


40  Erik  Dorn 

Of  course,  it  was  Erik  Dorn.  He  had  pleased 
her.  The  things  he  had  said  returned  to  her 
mind.  They  seemed  very  important,  as  if  she 
had  said  them  herself.  She  would  go  out  and  walk 
again — fast.  It  was  pleasant  to  be  lonely.  Her 
throat  shivered  as  she  breathed.  Bewildered  in 
the  lighted  room  she  laughed  and  her  lips  said 
aloud,  "I  don't  know.  I  don't  know!" 

Among  the  men  who  had  established  themselves 
as  friends  of  Rachel  was  a  young  attorney  named 
George  Hazlitt.  He  had  gone  to  school  with  her 
in  a  small  Wisconsin  town.  A  year  ago  he  had 
discovered  her  again  in  Chicago.  The  discovery 
had  excited  him.  He  was  a  young  man  with 
proprietory  instincts.  He  had  at  once  devoted 
them  to  Rachel.  After  several  months  he  had 
begun  to  dream  about  her.  They  were  correct  and 
estimable  dreams  reflecting  credit  upon  the  correct 
and  estimable  stock  from  which  he  came. 

He  fell  to  courting  Rachel  tenaciously,  torn 
between  a  certainty  that  she  was  insane  and  a  con- 
viction that  a  home,  a  husband's  love,  and  the 
paraphernalia  of  what  he  termed  clean,  healthy 
living  would  restore  her  to  sanity.  Their  meetings 
had  been  affairs  of  violence.  In  her  presence 
he  always  felt  a  rage  against  what  he  called  her 
neurasthenia — a  word  he  frequently  used  in  draw- 
ing up  bills  for  divorce.  He  regarded  neurasthenia 
not  as  a  disease  to  be  condoned  like  the  mumps,  but 
as  a  deliberate  failing — particularly  in  Rachel. 


Sleep  41 

The  neurasthenia  of  the  defendants  he  pursued  in 
courts  annoyed  him  only  slightly.  In  Rachel  it 
outraged  him.  It  was  his  habit  to  inform  her  that 
her  sufferings  were  nothing  more  than  affectations 
and  that  her  moods  were  shams  and  that  the 
whole  was  a  part  and  parcel  of  neurasthenia. 

This  unhappy  desire  of  his  to  browbeat  her  into 
a  state  which  he  defined  as  normal,  Rachel  had 
accepted  in  numb  helplessness.  She  had  given 
up  commanding  him  to  leave  her  alone.  His 
presence  frequently  became  a  nausea.  Her  en- 
fevered  senses  had  come  to  perceive  in  the  conven- 
tionally clothed  and  spoken  figure  of  the  young 
attorney,  a  concentration  of  the  repugnant  things 
before  which  she  cowered.  During  his  courtship 
he  had  grown  familiar  to  her  as  a  penalty  and  his 
visits  had  become  climaxes  of  loathsomeness. 

But  a  stability  of  purpose  peculiar  to  unsensi- 
tive  arid  egoistic  young  men  kept  Hazlitt  to  his 
quest.  His  steady  rise  in  his  profession,  the 
growing  respect  of  his  fellows  for  his  name,  fired 
him  with  a  sense  of  success.  Rachel  had  become 
the  victim  of  this  sense.  Of  all  the  men  she  knew 
Hazlitt  grew  to  be  the  most  unnecessary.  But  his 
persistence  seemed  to  increase  with  her  aversion 
for  him.  In  a  sort  of  mental  self-defense  against 
the  nervous  disgust  he  brought  her,  she  forced 
herself  to  think  of  him  and  even  to  argue  with  him. 
By  thinking  of  him  she  was  able  to  keep  the 
memory  of  him  an  impersonal  one,  and  to  convert 
him  from  an  emotionallv  unbearable  influence 


42  Erik  Dorn 

into  an  intellectually  insufferable  type.  A  con- 
version by  which  Hazlitt  profited,  for  she  tolerated 
him  more  easily  as  a  result  of  her  ruse.  She 
thought  of  him.  His  youth  was  fast  entrenching 
itself  in  platitudes  and  acquiring  the  vigor  and 
directness  that  come  as  a  reward  of  conformity. 
Life  was  nothing  to  wonder  at  or  feel.  Life 
shaped  itself  into  definite  images  and  inelastic 
values  before  him.  To  these  images  and  values  he 
conformed,  not  submissively,  but  with  a  militant 
enthusiasm.  On  summer  mornings  he  saw  him- 
self as  a  knight  of  virtue  advancing  clear-eyed 
upon  a  bedeviled  world.  When  he  was  among  his 
own  kind  he  summed  up  the  bedevilments  in  the 
word  "bunk."  The  politer  word,  to  be  used 
chivalrously,  was  "neurasthenia."  The  victims 
of  these  dedevilments  were  "nuts."  A  dreadful 
species  like  herself,  given  to  wrong  hair  cuts,  in- 
sanities, outrages  upon  decency  and  above  all, 
common  sense. 

Hazlitt 's  attraction  to  Rachel  in  the  face  of  her 
neurasthenia  did  not  confuse  him.  Confusion 
was  a  quality  foreign  to  Hazlitt.  He  courted  her 
as  a  lover  and  proselyter.  His  proselyting  con- 
sisted of  vigorous  denunciations  of  the  things  which 
contributed  to  the  neurasthenia  of  his  beloved. 
He  declaimed  his  notions  in  round,  rosy-cheeked 
sentences.  There  was  about  Hazlitt's  wooing  of 
Rachel  the  pathos  which  might  distinguish  the 
love  affair  of  a  Baptist  angel  and  the  hamadryad 
daughter  of  a  Babayaga. 


Sleep  43 

Yet,  though  in  her  presence  he  denounced  her 
art,  taste,  sufferings,  books,  friends,  affectations, 
away  from  her  she  came  to  him — beautiful  eyed 
and  fragile — bringing  a  fear  and  a  longing  into  his 
heart.  Dreaming  of  her  over  a  pipe  in  his  home 
at  night,  he  saw  her  as  something  bewilderingly 
clean,  different — vividly  different  from  other 
women,  with  a  difference  that  choked  and  sad- 
dened him.  There  was  a  virginity  about  her  that 
extended  beyond  her  body.  This  and  her  fragility 
haunted  him.  His  youth  had  caught  the  vision 
of  the  night  mist  of  her,  the  lonely  fields  of  her 
eyes,  the  shadow  dreams  toward  whose  solitudes 
she  seemed  to  be  flying.  Beside  Rachel  all  other 
women  were  to  him  somehow  coarse  and  ungainly 
fibered,  and  somehow  unvirginal. 

Out  of  his  dream  of  her  arose  his  desire  to  have 
her  as  his  own,  to  come  home  and  find  her  wait- 
ing, to  have  her  known  as  Mrs.  George  Hazlitt. 
The  thought  of  the  Rachel  he  knew — mysterious, 
fugitive,  neurasthenic — established  normally 
across  a  breakfast  table,  smiling  a  normal  good- 
bye at  him  with  her  arms  normally  about  his 
neck,  was  a  contrast  that  sharpened  his  desire. 
It  offered  a  transformation  that  would  be  a  vic- 
tory not  only  for  his  love  but  for  the  shining, 
militant  platitudes  behind  which  Rachel  had 
correctly  pointed  out  to  herself,  he  lived. 

Bewildered  in  the  lighted  room,  Rachel  turned 
suddenly  to  the  door.  Someone  was  knocking — 


44  Erik  Dorn 

loud.  She  hurried  eagerly  forward,  wondering  at 
an  unfinished  thought  .  .  .  "perhaps  it  is.  .  .  .  " 
Hazlitt,  smiling  with  steady,  solicitous  eyes 
confronted  her. 

"I've  been  knocking  for  five  minutes,"  he 
announced.  ' '  I  heard  you  or  I'd  have  gone  away. ' ' 

Rachel  nodded.  Of  course,  it  would  be  Hazlitt. 
He  was  always  appearing  when  least  expected. 
But  it  would  be  nice  to  talk  to  someone.  She 
smiled.  This  was  surprising  and  she  shook  her 
head  as  if  she  were  carrying  on  a  conversation 
with  herself.  George  Hazlitt  was  always  unbear- 
able. But  that  was  a  memory.  It  no  longer 
applied. 

"I'm  glad  you  came,"  she  greeted  him.  "I 
was  lonely." 

Hazlitt  looked  at  her  in  surprise.  Visiting 
Rachel  was  a  matter  that  required  an  extreme  of 
determination.  He  had  come  prepared  as  usual 
for  the  sullen,  uncomfortable  hour  she  offered. 

"I  was  going  out,"  she  continued,  "but  I  won't 
now.  If  you'll  sit  down  I'll  do  some  work.  You 
won't  mind." 

She  looked  at  him  eagerly  as  if  to  tell  him  he 
must  forget  she  had  always  hated  him  and  that 
she  was  different  now.  At  least  for  the  moment. 
He  understood  nothing  and  remained  staring  at 
her.  His  manner  proclaimed  frankly  that  he  was 
bewildered. 

"Yes,  certainly,"  he  answered  at  length,  and 
sat  down.  She  hurried  about,  securing  her  paints 


Sleep  45 

and  setting  up  one  of  the  unfinished  posters. 
Drawing  a  deep  breath  Hazlitt  lighted  a  pipe  and 
watched  her.  She  was  beautiful.  He  admitted 
it  with  less  belligerency  than  usual.  He  sat 
thinking,  "what  the  deuce  has  happened  to  her. 
She  said  she  was  glad  to  see  me."  He  was  afraid 
to  start  an  inquiry.  She  had  never  before  smiled 
at  him,  let  alone  voiced  pleasure  over  his  presence. 
It  was  a  mistake  of  some  sort  but  he  would  enjoy 
it  for  awhile.  But  perhaps  it  was  the  beginning 
of  something. 

Hazlitt  sighed.  He  smoked,  waited,  and  struggled 
to  avoid  the  thoughts  that  crowded  upon  him. 

1 '  That's  rather  nice, ' '  he  said.  He  would  follow 
her  mood,  whatever  it  was.  Rachel's  eyes  laughed 
toward  him. 

"I  hope  it  doesn't  bore  you.  If  you  hadn't 
come  I  would  never  have  thought  of  working." 

The  thing  was  unbelievable.  Yet  he  contem- 
plated it  serenely.  He  would  talk  to  her  soon  and 
find  out  what  was  the  matter.  There  was  un- 
doubtedly something  the  matter.  His  eyes  stared 
at  her  furtively  as  she  returned  to  her  work. 
"There's  something  the  matter,"  his  thought 
cautioned  him.  Rachel  resumed  her  talking.  A 
naivete  and  freshness  were  in  her  voice.  She  was 
letting  her  tongue  speak  for  her  and  laughing  at 
the  sound  of  the  curious  remarks  it  made. 

"Do  you  think  that  women  are  becoming  bar- 
barians? The  way  they  mess  up  their  hair  and 
go  in  for  savage  colors !  Sometimes  I  get  to  feeling 


46  Erik  Dorn 

that    they    will    end    up    as — as    psychopathic 
barbarians.     With  astrologer  hats." 

She  regarded  Hazlitt  carelessly.  Hazlitt,  with 
fidgets  in  his  thought,  smiled.  His  eyes  lost  their 
solicitous  air.  They  began  to  search  shrewdly 
for  some  reason.  The  spectacle  of  a  coquettish 
Rachel  was  beyond  him,  even  as  the  sound  of  her 
laugh  was  an  amazing  music  to  his  senses.  But  his 
shrewdness  evaporated.  It  occurred  to  him  that 
women  were  peculiar.  Particularly  Rachel.  A 
direct  and  vigorous  Hazlitt  concluded  that  Rachel 
had  succumbed  to  his  superior  guidance.  There 
was  nothing  else  to  explain  her  tolerance.  He 
called  it  tolerance,  for  he  was  still  wary  and  her 
eyes  shining  eagerly,  hungrily  at  him  might  be 
no  more  than  a  new  kind  of  neurasthenia.  He  let 
her  talk  on  without  interruption.  She  would  like 
to  paint  streets,  houses,  lights  in  the  dark,  city 
things.  Blowing  puffs  of  smoke  carelessly  toward 
the  ceiling  he  answered  finally,  "If  you  didn't 
have  to  support  youself,  perhaps  you  could."  A 
fear  whirled  in  his  heart  with  the  sentence.  He 
had  never  asked  her  outright  to  marry  him.  The 
thought  that  he  had  almost  asked  her,  now  made 
him  feel  dizzy. 

"There!  I  guess  that  can  rest  now." 
Rachel  put  aside  her  painting.  She  sat  down 
near  him.  Her  eyes  narrowed  and  she  listened 
with  a  sleepy  smile  as  he  began  carefully  to  recite 
to  her  incidents  that  had  happened  during  his 
day.  But  he  became  silent.  She  didn't  mind 


Sleep  47 

that.  She  desired  to  sit  as  she  was,  her  emotion  a 
dream  that  escaped  her  thought.  Hazlitt  fumbled 
with  his  pipe.  It  was  out.  He  dropped  it  into  a 
pocket.  His  shrewdness  and  his  weariness  had 
left  him.  He  felt  almost  that  he  was  alone. 

"You're  wonderful,"  he  whispered;  and  he  grew 
frightened  of  his  voice.  Rachel  saw  his  face  light 
with  an  unusual  expression.  He  would  be  kind 
now  and  let  her  smile. 

"I'm  glad  you  came,"  she  sighed.  "I  don't 
know  why.  I  feel  different  to-night." 

She  had  a  habit  of  short,  begrudging  sentences 
delivered  in  a  quick  monotone — a  habit  of  speech 
against  which  Hazlitt  had  often  raged.  But  now 
her  words — flurried,  breathless,  begrudging  as 
always — stirred  him.  They  could  be  believed. 
She  was  a  child  that  way.  She  spoke  quickly 
thoughts  that  were  uppermost  in  her  mind. 

"I  never  thought  I  could  be  glad  to  see  you. 
But  I  am." 

Hazlitt  felt  suddenly  weak.  Her  face  before 
him  was  something  in  a  dream.  It  was  turned 
away  and  he  could  watch  her  breathing.  Be- 
wilderedly  he  remembered  a  thousand  Rachels, 
different  from  this  one,  who  was  glad  he  had  come. 
But  the  beauty  of  her  burned  away  uncomfortable 
memories.  She  was  the  Rachel  of  his  loneliness. 
Out  of  George  Hazlitt  vanished  the  vigor  and 
directness  of  a  young  man  who  knows  his  own 
soul.  There  came  a  vision — a  thing  uncertain 
and  awesome,  and  he  sat  humbled  before  it. 


48  Erik  Dorn 

He  reached  her  hand  and  closed  his  fingers  over 
it.  An  awe  squeezed  at  his  throat.  Her  hand 
lay  without  protest  within  his.  He  had  never 
touched  her  before.  She  had  been  a  symbol  and 
a  dream.  Now  he  felt  the  marvel  of  the  fact  that 
she  was  a  woman.  Her  hand,  warm  and  alive, 
astonished  him  with  the  news. 

Rachel,  during  his  speechlessness,  looked  at  him 
unbelievingly.  The  grip  of  his  ringers  was  bring- 
ing an  ache  into  her  heart.  It  was  sad.  The  night 
and  the  room  were  sad.  She  could  feel  sadness  open- 
ing little  wounds  in  her  breasts.  And  before  she 
had  been  happy.  She  heard  him  whispering,  ' '  I 
can't  talk  to  you.  I  can't.  Oh,  you  are  beautiful ! " 

His  eyes  made  her  think  he  was  suffering.  Then 
he  was  sad,  too.  She  stood  up  because  his  hand 
drew  her.  Why  did  he  want  her  to  stand  up? 
His  body  touched  her  and  she  heard  him  gasp. 
Her  heart  seemed  adrift.  She  was  unreal.  There 
was  another  Rachel  somewhere  else.  He  was  say- 
ing, but  he  was  not  talking  to  her,  "Oh,  Rachel, 
I  love  you.  I  love  you,  Rachel!" 

Still  she  waited  unbelievingly,  the  ache  in  her 
dragging  at  her  senses.  She  had  fallen  asleep  and 
was  dreaming  something  that  was  sad.  But  his 
face  was  suddenly  too  close.  His  eyes  were  too 
near  and  bright.  They  awakened  her. 

"Let  me  go,  quick." 

His  hands  clung.  For  an  instant  she  failed  to 
understand  his  resistance.  He  was  saying  jerkily, 
"No  .  .  no'" 


Sleep  49 

She  twisted  out  of  his  arms  and  stood  breathless, 
as  if  she  were  choking.  Hazlitt  looked  at  her,  a 
bit  pensively.  His  heart  lost  in  a  dream  and  a 
rapture  could  only  grimace  a  child's  protest  out 
of  his  stare.  He  hadn't  kissed  her.  But  that 
would  come  soon.  Not  everything  at  once.  He 
must  not  be  a  brute.  He  smiled.  His  good- 
natured  face  glowed  as  if  in  a  light.  Then  he 
heard  her  talking, 

"  Go  away.  At  once.  I  never  want  to  see  you 
again.  I'll  die  if  I  see  you  again." 

Her  hands  were  in  her  hair. 

"Go  away.  Please.  ...  Oh,  God,  I  can't 
stand  you.  You — horrify  me ! ' ' 

The  panic  in  Rachel's  voice  seemed  to  dull  his 
ears  to  her  words.  He  saw  her  for  a  vivid  mo- 
ment against  the  opened  window  and  then  he 
found  himself  alone,  looking  into  a  night  that  was 
haunted  with  an  image  of  her.  He  remembered 
her  going,  but  it  seemed  to  him  he  still  saw  her 
against  the  window,  his  eyes  bringing  to  him  a 
vision  of  her  face  as  she  had  looked. 

He  had  grown  white.  In  the  memory  of  her 
face,  as  in  an  impossible  mirror,  he  saw  a  loath- 
some image  of  himself.  Her  eyes  had  blazed  with 
it.  He  sickened  and  his  thought  grew  faint. 
Then  the  night  came  before  him  and  the  echo  of 
the  words  Rachel  had  spoken  beat  in  his  head. 
He  walked  with  his  hat  politely  in  his  hand  out  of 
the  door. 

On  the  stairs  his  eyes  grew  weak  and  warm. 


5°  Erik  Dorn 

Tears  rushed  from  them.  He  stumbled  and 
clutched  at  the  banister.  She  had  led  him  on. 
She  had  looked  at  him  with  love.  Love  .  .  . 
but  he  had  dreamed  that.  What  was  it,  then? 
Her  eyes  burning  toward  him  had  told  him  he 
was  loathsome.  There  was  something  wrong 
with  him.  He  wept.  He  put  his  hat  on  mechani- 
cally. He  dried  his  eyes.  There  was  something 
wrong. 

On  her  bed  Rachel  lay  mumbling  to  herself, 
mumbling  as  if  the  words  were  a  pain  to  her  ears. 
1  'Erik  Dorn  ,  ,  Erik  Dorn." 


CHAPTER  VI 

rE  world  in  which  Erik  Dorn  lived  was  com- 
pounded of  many  surfaces.  Of  them  Anna, 
his  wife,  was  the  most  familiar.  It  was  a  familiar- 
ity of  absorption.  Weeks  of  intimacy  passed  be- 
tween them,  of  lover-like  attentiveness  during 
which  Dorn  remained  unconscious  of  her  existence. 
Her  unending  talk  of  her  love  for  him — words  and 
murmurs  that  seemed  an  inexhaustible  overflow 
of  her  heart — passed  through  his  mind  as  a  part  of 
his  own  thought.  Hers  was  a  more  definite  con- 
tribution to  the  emptiness  of  the  life  through 
which  he  moved. 

Yet  in  his  unconsciousness  of  her  there  lived  a 
shadowy  affection.  On  occasions  in  which  they 
had  been  separated  there  had  always  awakened 
in  him  an  uneasiness.  In  his  nights  alone  he  lay 
sleepless,  oppressed,  a  nostalgia  for  her  presence 
growing  in  him.  With  his  eyes  opened  at  the 
darkness  of  a  strange  room  he  experienced  then 
an  incompleteness  as  if  he  himself  were  not  enough. 
The  emptiness  in  which  he  was  living  became  sud- 
denly real.  He  would  feel  a  despair.  Words  un- 
like the  sophisticated  patter  of  his  usual  thought 
would  come  to  him.  .  .  .  "What  is  there  .  .  . 
I  would  like  something  .  .  .  what?  ..."  A 

51 


52  Erik  Dorn 

sense  of  life  as  an  unpeopled  vastness  would 
frighten  him  vaguely.  Night  sounds  .  ... 
strange,  shadow-hidden  walls.  They  made  him 
uneasy.  Memories  then;  puzzling,  mixed-up  pic- 
tures that  had  lost  their  outlines.  Things  that 
had  left  no  impression  on  his  thought — sterile 
little  incidents  through  which  he  had  moved  with 
automatic  gestures — returned  like  sad  little  out- 
casts pleading  with  him.  Faces  he  could  not 
remember  and  that  were  yet  familiar  peered  at 
him  in  his  sleeplessness  with  poignant  eyes  that 
frightened. 

There  would  come  to  him  the  memory  of  the 
time  he  had  been  a  boy  and  had  lain  like  this  in 
his  mother's  home,  startled  with  fears  that  sat 
like  insanities  in  his  throat.  The  memory  of  his 
being  a  boy  seemed  to  restore  him  to  the  fears 
long  forgotten.  Words  would  come  .  .  .  "I 
was  a  boy  .  .  . "  and  he  would  lie  thinking  of  how 
people  grew  old ;  of  how  he  had  grown  old  without 
seeming  to  change,  and  yet  changing — as  if  he  had 
been  gently  vanishing  from  himself  and  even  now 
was  moving  slowly  away.  He  was  like  a  house 
from  which  issued  a  dim  procession  of  guests  never 
pausing  for  farewells.  He  had  been  a  boy,  a 
youth,  a  man  .  .  .  each  containing  days  and 
thoughts.  And  they  moved  slowly  away  from 
him — completed  figures  fully  dressed.  Slowly, 
without  farewells,  with  faces  intensely  familiar 
yet  no  longer  known.  Thus  he  would  continue 
to  vanish  from  himself,  remaining  unchanged  but 


Sleep  53 

diminishing,  until  there  were  no  more  guests  to 
forsake  and  he  stood  alone  waiting  a  last  farewell 
— a  curious,  unimaginable  good-bye  to  himself. 
Nothing  .  .  .  nothing.  A  long  wait  for  a  good- 
bye. And  then  nothing  again.  Already  he  was 
half  shadow — half  a  procession  of  Erik  Dorns 
walking  away  from  him  and  growing  dimmer. 

In  the  dark  of  the  strange  room,  his  eyes  star- 
ing and  fearful,  he  would  reach  suddenly  for 
Anna,  embracing  her  almost  as  if  she  were  beside 
him.  Her  smile  that  forever  shone  upon  him  like 
the  light  of  lilies  and  candles  from  a  sad,  quiet 
altar ;  her  words  that  forever  flowed  like  a  dream 
from  her  heart,  the  warmth  of  her  body  that  she 
offered  him  as  if  it  no  longer  existed  for  herself — 
to  these  his  loneliness  sought  vainly  to  carry  him. 
And  he  would  find  himself  tormented  by  a  desire 
for  her,  lying  with  her  name  on  his  lips  and  her 
image  alone  alive  in  the  empty  dread  of  his 
thought. 

United  again  in  their  home,  he  lapsed  into  the 
unconsciousness  of  her,  sometimes  vaguely  startled 
by  the  tears  he  felt  on  her  cheeks  as  they  lay  to- 
gether at  night,  Out  of  this  unconsciousness  he 
made  continual  love  to  her,  giving  her  back  her 
endearments  and  caresses.  Of  this  he  never 
tired.  His  kisses  unaware  of  her,  his  tendernesses 
without  meaning  to  him,  he  yet  felt  in  her  presence 
the  shadow  of  a  desire.  The  love  that  filled  his 
wife  seemed  to  animate  his  phrases  with  an 
amorous  diction  that  echoed  her  own.  He  would 


54  Erik  Dorn 

hold  her  in  his  arms,  bestowing  kisses  upon  her, 
and  watch  as  in  wonder  of  some  mysterious  make- 
believe,  the  radiance  that  his  meaningless  gestures 
brought  to  her. 

There  were  times,  however,  when  Dorn  became 
aware  of  his  wife,  when  she  thrust  herself  before 
him  as  a  far-away-eyed  and  beautiful-faced 
stranger.  He  had  frequently  followed  her  in  the 
street,  watching  her  body  sway  as  she  walked, 
observing  with  quickening  surprise  her  trim, 
lyre-like  shoes,  her  silken  ankles,  the  agile  sensual- 
ism of  her  litheness  under  a  stranger's  dress.  He 
had  noticed  that  she  had  coils  of  red  hair  with 
bronze  and  gold  lights  slipping  over  it,  that  her 
face  tilted  itself  with  a  hint  of  determination  and 
her  eyes  walked  proudly  over  the  heads  of  the 
crowd.  He  watched  other  men  glimpse  her  and 
turn  for  an  instant  to  follow  with  their  stares  the 
promise  of  her  body  and  lighted  face.  Dorn, 
walking  out  of  her  sight,  got  a  confused  sense  of 
her  as  if  she  were  speaking  to  the  street,  "I  am 
a  beautiful  woman.  In  my  head  are  thoughts. 
I  am  a  stranger  to  you.  You  do  not  know  what 
my  body  looks  like  or  what  dreams  live  in  me.  I 
have  destinations  and  emotions  that  are  myste- 
rious to  you.  I  am  somebody  different  from 
yourselves." 

On  top  of  this  sense  of  her  had  come  each  time  a 
sudden  vivid  picture — Anna  in  their  bedroom  at- 
taching her  garters  to  the  tops  of  her  stockings; 
Anna  tautening  her  body  as  she  slipped  out  of  her 


Sleep  55 

nightgown  .  .  .  or  a  picture  of  her  pressing  his 
head  against  her  breasts  and  whispering  passion- 
ately, "Erik,  I  adore  you."  The  strangeness 
then  would  leave  her  and  again  she  was  something 
he  had  absorbed.  When  he  looked  for  her  she 
had  vanished  in  the  scribble  of  the  crowd  and  he 
walked  with  the  same  curious  unconsciousness  of 
her  existence  as  of  his  own. 

There  were  times  too  in  their  home  when  Anna 
became  a  reality  before  his  eyes — an  external  that 
startled  him.  This  was  such  a  time  now.  Rachel 
had  come  to  visit  them.  She  sat  silent,  fugitive- 
bodied  amid  overfed,  perspiring-eyed  guests.  And 
he  stood  looking  at  Anna  and  listening  to  her. 

He  wondered  why  he  looked  at  Anna  and  not 
at  Rachel.  But  his  wife  in  black  velvet  and  silken 
pumps,  like  a  well-limned  character  out  of  some 
work  of  stately  fiction,  held  his  attention.  He 
desired  to  talk  to  her  as  if  she  were  a  stranger. 
She  sat  without  surprise  at  his  unusual  verbal  ani- 
mation in  her  behalf,  listening  to  his  banter  with 
an  intent,  almost  preoccupied  smile  in  her  eyes. 
While  he  talked,  asking  her  questions  and  press- 
ing for  answers,  he  thought.  "She's  not  paying 
any  attention  to  my  words,  but  to  me.  Her  love 
is  like  a  robe  about  her,  covering  her  completely." 
Yet  she  seemed  strange.  Behind  this  love  lived 
a  person  capable  of  thinking  and  reasoning.  Dorn, 
as  sometimes  happened,  grew  curious  about  her 
thoughts.  He  increased  his  efforts  to  rivet  her 
attention,  as  if  he  were  trying  to  coax  a  secret  out 


56  Erik  Dorn 

of  her.  The  easiest  way  to  arouse  her  was  to  say 
things  that  frightened  her,  to  make  remarks  that 
might  give  her  the  feeling  he  had  some  underlying 
idea  in  his  head  hostile  to  their  happiness. 

The  company  of  faces  in  the  room  emitted  laugh- 
ter, uttered  words  of  shocked  contradiction, 
pressed  themselves  eagerly  forward  upon  his 
phrases.  A  red-faced  man  whose  vacuity  startled 
from  behind  a  pair  of  owlish  glasses  exclaimed, 
"That's  all  wrong,  Dorn.  Women  don't  want 
war.  Your  wife  would  rather  cut  off  her  arm 
than  see  you  go  to  war.  And  mine,  too." 

The  wife  of  the  red-faced  man  giggled.  A 
younger,  unmarried  woman  posed  carelessly  on 
the  black  piano  bench  in  an  effort  to  exaggerate 
the  charms  of  her  body,  spoke  with  a  deliberate 
sigh. 

4 'No,  I  don't  agree  with  you,  Mr.  Harlan. 
Women  are  capable  of  sacrifice." 

She  thrust  forward  a  lavender-stockinged  leg 
and  contemplated  it  with  a  far-away  sacrificial 
light  in  her  eyes.  The  red-faced  one  observed 
her  with  sudden  owlish  seriousness.  His  ar- 
gument seemed  routed. 

"Of  course  that's  true,"  he  agreed.  Mr.  Har- 
lan came  of  a  race  whose  revolutionary  notions 
expired  apologetically  before  the  first  platitude 
to  cross  their  path.  "We  must  always  bear  in 
mind  that  women  are  capable  of  sacrifice;  that 
women  .  .  .  "  The  lavender  stocking  was  with- 
drawing itself  and  Mr.  Harlan  stammered  like  an 


Sleep  57 

orator  witnessing  a  sudden  exodus  of  his  audience, 
"that  women  are  really  capable  of  remarkable 
things,"  he  concluded. 

Dorn  was  an  uncommonly  clever  fellow,  but  a 
bit  radical.  He'd  like  to  think  of  something  to  say 
to  him  just  to  show  him  there  was  another  side  to 
it.  Not  that  he  gave  a  damn.  Some  other  time 
would  do.  The  red  face  turned  with  a  great 
attentiveness  toward  the  hoarsely  oracular  Mr. 
Warren,  his  eyes  dropping  a  furtive  curtsy  in  the 
direction  of  the  vanished  stocking. 

"I  never  agree  with  Dorn,"  Warren  was 
remarking,  "for  fear  of  displeasing  him." 

He  gazed  belligerently  at  Anna  whose  eyes  were 
attracting  attention.  She  was  watching  her  hus- 
band in  a  manner  unbecoming  a  hostess.  A  middle- 
aged  youth  toying  politely  with  the  blue  sash  of  a 
girl  in  a  white  dress — he  had  recently  concluded  a 
tense  examination  of  the  two  antique  rings  on 
her  fingers — saw  an  occasion  for  laughter  and  em- 
braced it.  The  girl  glanced  somewhat  timidly 
toward  Anna  and  addressed  her  softly,  as  if 
desiring  to  engage  in  some  conversation  beyond 
the  superficial  excitement  of  the  moment. 

"I'm  just  mad  about  blue  sashes,"  she  whis- 
pered. "I  think  the  sash  is  coming  back,  don't 
you?" 

Anna  nodded  her  head.  Erik  had  resumed  his 
talk,  his  eyes  still  on  her. 

"Women  are  two  things — theory  and  fact,"  he 
was  saying.  "The  theory  of  them  demands  war. 


58  Erik  Dorn 

If  we  get  into  this  squabble  you'll  find  them  cheer- 
ing the  loudest  and  waving  the  most  flags.  War 
is  something  that  kills  men;  therefore,  it  is 
piquantly  desirable  to  their  subconscious  hate  of 
our  sex."  He  smiled  openly  at  Anna.  "It's  also 
something  that  plays  up  the  valor  and  superiority 
of  man  and  therefore  offers  a  vindication  for  her 
submission  to  him." 

"Oh,"  the  lavender  stocking  was  indignantly 
in  evidence,  "how  awful!" 

Dorn  waited  until  the  young  woman  had 
shifted  her  hips  into  a  more  protesting  out- 
line. 

"I  agree,"  the  red  face  chimed  in.  "It's  non- 
sense. Dorn's  full  of  clever  nonsense.  I  quite 
agree  with  you,  Miss  Dillingham."  Miss  Dilling- 
ham  was  the  lavender  stocking.  The  wife  of 
the  red  face  fidgeted,  politely  ominous.  She 
announced  pertly: 

"I  agree  with  what  Mr.  Dorn  says."  Which 
announcement  her  husband  properly  translated 
into  a  warning  and  a  threat  of  future  conversation 
on  the  theme,  "You  never  pay  any  attention  to 
me  when  there's  anybody  else  around." 

Dorn  continued,  "And  it  gives  them  a  sense  of 
generalities.  Women  live  crowded  between  the 
narrow  horizons  of  sex.  They  don't  share  in  life. 
It's  very  sad,  isn't  it,  Miss  Williams?"  Miss 
Williams  removed  her  sash  gently  from  the  hands 
of  the  elderly  youth  and  pouted.  She  was  always 
indignant  when  men  addressed  her  seriously.  It 


Sleep  59 

gave  her  an  uncomfortable  feeling  that  they  were 
making  fun  of  her. 

"Oh,  I  don't  know,"  she  answered.  The 
elderly  youth  nodded  his  head  enthusiastically 
and  whispered  close  to  her  ear,  "Exactly." 

"The  things  that  are  an  entirety  to  women," 
pursued  Dorn,  "milk  bottles,  butcher  bills,  babies, 
cleaning  days,  hello  and  good-bye  kisses,  are  merely 
gestures  to  their  husbands.  So  in  a  war  they  find 
themselves  able  to  share  what  is  known  as  the 
larger  horizon  of  the  male.  One  way  is  through 
sacrifice.  They  sacrifice  their  sons,  lovers,  hus- 
bands, uncles,  and  fathers  with  a  high,  firm  spirit, 
announcing  to  the  press  that  they  are  only  sorry 
their  supply  of  relatives  is  limited.  The  sacri- 
ficing brings  them  in  contact  with  the  world  in 
which  their  males  live.  'That's  the  theory  of  it." 

Anna's  smile  continued  to  deny  itself  to  his 
words.  It  said  to  him,  "What  does  it  matter 
what  you  say?  I  love  you."  And  yet  there  was 
a  thought  behind  it  holding  itself  aloof. 

"But  the  fact  of  woman  is  always  denying  her 
theory,"  he  added.  "That's  what  makes  her 
confusing.  The  fact  of  her  weeps  at  departures, 
shell  shocks,  amputations;  grows  timid  and  or- 
ganizes pacifist  societies.  It's  a  case  of  sex 
instinct  versus  the  personal  complex." 

The  elderly  young  man  straightened  in  his 
chair,  removing  his  eyes  from  Miss  Williams  with 
the  air  of  one  returning  to  masculine  worldliness. 

"I  don't  know  about  that,"  he  said.     "It's  all 


60  Erik  Dorn 

very  well  to  talk  about  such  things  flippantly. 
But  when  the  time  comes,  we  must  admit  .  .  . " 

"That  talk  is  foolish,"  interrupted  Warren. 
He  looked  at  Rachel  and  laughed.  "As  a  matter 
of  fact,  if  anybody  else  but  Dorn  said  it,  I'd  believe 
it.  But  I  never  believe  Dorn.  Do  you,  Miss 
Laskin?" 

Rachel  answered,  "Yes." 

Dorn,  piqued  by  the  continual  silence  of  his 
wife,  felt  a  sudden  discomfiture  at  the  sound  of 
Rachel's  voice.  Was  Anna  aware  he  was  talking 
to  her  so  as  to  avoid  talking  to  Rachel?  Perhaps. 
But  Rachel's  presence  was  diluted  by  the  company. 
He  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  dark  eyes  opened 
towards  him,  and  for  a  moment  felt  his  words 
disintegrate.  He  continued  hurriedly: 

"War,  in  a  way,  is  a  noble  business,  in  that  it 
reduces  us  to  a  biological  sanity — much  the  same 
as  does  Miss  Dillingham's  lavender  stocking!" 

The  company  swallowed  this  with  an  abrupt 
stiffening  of  necks.  Isaac  Dorn,  who  had  been 
airing  himself  on  the  veranda,  relieved  a  tension 
by  appearing  in  the  doorway  and  moving  quietly 
toward  an  unoccupied  chair.  Anna  reached  her 
hand  to  the  old  man's  and  held  it  kindly.  Miss 
Dillingham,  surveying  the  stretch  of  hose  which 
had  been  honored  in  her  host's  conversation,  raised 
her  eyes  and  replied  quietly : 

"Mr.  Dorn  is  too  clever  to  be  really  insulting." 

The  red-faced  one  clung  to  a  sense  of  outrage. 
His  cheeks  had  grown  slightly  distended,  and  with 


Sleep  61 

the  grimace  of  indignant  virtue  bristling  on  his 
face,  he  turned  the  expression  toward  his  wife  for 
approval.  She  nodded  her  head  and  tightened 
the  thin  line  of  her  lips. 

"I  only  meant,"  laughed  Dorn,  "that  it  reduces 
us  to  the  sort  of  sanity  that  wipes  out  the  absurd, 
artificial  notions  of  morality  that  keep  cluttering 
up  the  thought  of  the  race.  War  reminds  us  that 
civilization  and  murder  are  compatible.  Lavender 
stockings,  speaking  in  generalities,  are  reminders 
that  good  and  evil  walk  on  equally  comely  legs." 

Mr.  Harlan,  having  registered  indignation,  now 
struggled  vainly  against  the  preenings  of  his  wit, 
and  finally  succumbed. 

"In  these  days  you  can't  tell  Judy  O'Grady  and 
the  Colonel's  lady  apart  by  their  stockings,  eh?" 
He  hammered  his  point  home  with  a  laugh. 
Warren  winked  at  Rachel  as  if  to  inform  her  of  the 
mixed  company  they  were  in,  and  Mrs.  Harlan 
endeavored  to  put  an  end  to  the  isolated  merri- 
ment of  her  husband  with  a  ''John,  you're  impos- 
sible!" The  elderly  youth,  conscious  of  himself 
as  the  escort  of  a  young  virgin,  lowered  his  eyes 
modestly  to  her  ankles.  Dorn,  watching  his  wife's 
smile  deepen,  nodded  his  head  at  her.  He  knew 
her  momentary  thought.  She  labored  under  the 
pleasing  conviction  that  his  risque  remarks  were 
invariably  inspired  by  memories  of  her. 

"Barring,  of  course,  the  unembattled  stay-at- 
homes,"  he  continued.  "The  sanity  of  battle- 
fields is  in  direct  ratio  to  the  insanity  of  the  non- 


62  Erik  Dorn 

combatants.  You  can  see  it  already  in  the  press. 
We  who  stay  at  home  endeavor  to  excuse  the  crime 
of  war  by  attaching  ludicrous  ideals  and  purposes 
to  its  result.  Thus  every  war  is  to  its  non-com- 
batants a  holy  war.  And  we  get  a  swivel-chair 
collection  of  nincompoops  raving  weirdly,  as  the 
casualty  lists  pour  in,  of  humanity  and  demo- 
cracy. It  hasn't  come  yet,  but  it  will." 

"Then  you  don't  believe  in  war?"  said  the  red 
face,  emerging  triumphantly  upon  respectable 
ground. 

"As  a  phenomenon  inspired  by  ideals  or  result- 
ing in  anything  more  satisfactory  than  a  wholesale 
loss  of  life,  war  is  always  a  joke,"  Dorn  answered. 
He  wondered  whether  Rachel  was  considering  him 
a  pompous  ass.  "I  have  a  whole-hearted  respect 
for  it,  however,  as  a  biological  excitement." 

The  blue  sash  winced  primly  at  the  word  bio- 
logical, and  appealed  to  her  escort  to  protect  her 
somehow  from  the  indecencies  of  life.  The  elderly 
youth  answered  her  appeal  with  a  tightening  of 
his  features. 

"War  isn't  biological,"  he  retorted  in  her  behalf. 

Dorn,  wearying  of  his  talk,  waited  for  some  one 
of  the  company  to  relieve  him  of  the  burden.  But 
the  elderly  youth  had  subsided,  and  fulfilling  his 
functions  as  host — a  business  of  diverting  visitors 
from  the  fact  that  there  was  no  reason  for  their 
presence  in  his  home — Dorn  was  forced  to 
continue : 

"I  can  conceive  of  no  better  or  saner  way  to  die 


Sleep  63 

than  crawling  around  in  the  mud,  shrieking  like  a 
savage,  and  assisting  blindly  in  the  depopulation 
of  an  enemy.  But  unless  a  man  is  forced  to  fight, 
I  can  conceive  of  nothing  more  horrible  than  war. 
Don't  you  think  that,  Anna?" 

"You  know  what  I  think,  Erik,"  she  answered. 
"I  hate  it." 

He  was  startled  by  a  sudden  similarity  between 
Rachel  and  Anna.  She  too  was  looking  at  him 
with  the  indignant  aloofness  of  his  wife — with  a 
rapt  attention  seemingly  beyond  the  sound  of  his 
words.  He  caught  the  two  women  turn  and  smile 
to  each  other  with  an  understanding  that  left  him  a 
stranger  to  both.  He  thought  quickly,  "Anna  is 
the  only  one  in  the  room  intelligent  enough  for 
Rachel  to  understand."  He  felt  a  momentary 
pride  in  his  wife,  and  wondered. 

As  the  conversation,  playing  with  the  theme  of 
war,  spread  itself  in  spasmodic  blurs  about  the 
room,  bursting  in  little  crescendoes  of  conviction, 
pronouncements,  suddenly  serious  and  inviolable 
truths,  Dorn  found  himself  listening  excitedly. 
An  unusual  energy  pumped  notions  into  his 
thought.  But  it  was  impossible  to  give  vent  to 
ideas  before  this  collection  of  comedians.  He  de- 
sired to  look  at  Rachel,  but  kept  his  eyes  away.  If 
they  were  alone,  he  could  talk.  He  permitted 
himself  the  luxury  of  an  explosive  silence. 

He  sat  for  a  time  thinking.  "Curious!  She 
knows  I  have  things  to  say  to  her.  They  are 
unimportant  but  I  can  say  them  to  no  one  else. 


64  Erik  Dorn 

She  knows  I  avoid  looking  at  her.  There  must  be 
something — an  attraction.  She's  a  fool.  I  don't 
know.  I  should  have  put  an  end  to  our  walks 
long  ago." 

His  vocabulary,  marshaling  itself  under  a  sur- 
prising force,  charged  with  a  rush  through  his 
thought.  Sentences  unrelated,  bizarre  combina- 
tions of  words — a  kaleidoscopic  procession  of  as- 
tounding ideas — art,  life,  war,  streets,  people — 
he  knew  what  they  were  all  about.  An  illumina- 
tion like  a  verbal  ecstacy  spread  itself  through 
him.  Under  it  he  continued  to  think  as  if  with  a 
separate  set  of  words,  "I  don't  know.  She  isn't 
beautiful.  A  stupid,  nervous  little  girl.  But  it 
hasn't  anything  to  do  with  her.  It's  something 
in  me." 

He  stood  up,  his  eyes  unsmiling,  and  surveyed 
the  animated  faces  as  from  a  distance.  Paper 
faces  and  paper  eyes — fluttering  masks  suspended 
politely  above  fabrics  that  lounged  in  chairs. 
They  were  unreal — too  unreal  even  to  talk  to. 
Beyond  these  figures  in  the  room  and  the  noises 
they  made,  lay  something  that  was  not  unreal. 
It  pulled  at  the  sleep  in  him.  He  stood  as  if  ar- 
rested by  his  own  silence.  The  night  outside  the 
window  came  into  his  eyes,  covering  the  words 
in  his  brain  and  leaving  him  alone. 

He  heard  Anna  speaking. 

"What  are  you  thinking  about,  Erik?" 

Her  eyes  seemed  to  him  laden  with  forebodings. 
Yet  she  was  smiling.  There  was  something  that 


Sleep  65 

made  her  afraid.  He  turned  toward  Rachel  and 
found  her  standing  as  if  in  imitation  of  himself, 
her  face  lifted  toward  the  window,  the  taut  line  of 
her  neck  an  attitude  that  brought  him  the  image  of 
a  white  bird's  wing  soaring.  He  felt  himself  un- 
able to  speak,  as  if  a  hand  had  been  laid  threaten- 
ingly on  his  throat.  Rachel  was  indiscreet  to 
stand  that  way,  to  look  that  way.  There  was  no 
mistaking.  His  thought,  shaking  itself  free  of 
words  .  .  .  "In  love  with  me.  In  love  with 
me!"  He  paused.  A  bewildering  sense  of  in- 
fidelity. But  he  had  done  nothing — only  walk 
with  her  a  few  afternoons.  And  talk.  "A  stupid, 
nervous  little  girl."  It  was  some  sort  of  game, 
not  serious  necessarily.  He  stepped  abstractedly 
toward  his  wife,  aware  that  the  conversation  had 
flattened. 

"I  wasn't  thinking,"  he  answered,  searching 
guiltily  for  an  epigram.  ' '  Won't  you  play  ? ' ' 

Anna  stood  up  and  brought  her  eyes  to  a  level 
with  his  own.  Again  the  light  of  foreboding,  of 
unrevealed  shadows  flashed  at  him  out  of  her 
smile.  She  understood  something  not  clear  in  his 
own  head;  nor  in  hers.  He  grasped  her  hand  as 
she  passed  and  with  a  dolorous  grimace  of  his 
heart  felt  it  unresponsive  in  his  fingers. 

Anna  was  playing  from  a  piano  score  of  Parsifal. 
The  music  dropped  a  curtain.  Dorn  became  con- 
scious of  himself  in  an  overheated  room  sur- 
rounded by  a  group  of  awed  and  saccharine  faces. 
Rachel  was  smiling  at  him  with  a  meaning  that  he 


66  Erik  Dorn 

seemed  to  have  forgotten.  He  stared  back, 
pleasantly  aware  that  a  familiar  sneer  had  returned 
to  his  eyes.  In  a  corner  his  father  sat  watching 
Anna  and  he  noticed  that  the  old  man's  watery 
eyes  turned  in,  as  if  gazing  at  images  in  his  own 
thought.  His  father's  smile,  as  always,  touched 
Dorn  with  an  irritation,  and  he  hurried  from  it. 

The  others  were  more  amusing.  The  spectacle 
of  the  faces  wilting  into  maudlin  abstractions 
under  the  caress  of  the  music  brought  a  grin  to  him. 
The  sounds  had  drugged  the  polite  little  masks 
and  left  them  poised  morosely  in  a  sleepy  dream. 
The  lavender  stocking  crept  tenderly  into  evi- 
dence. The  owlish  glasses  focused  with  non- 
committal stoicism  in  its  direction.  The  blue 
sash  looked  worried  and  the  raised  eyebrows  of  the 
elderly  youth  asked  unhappy  questions.  Music 
made  people  sad  and  caused  sighs  to  trickle  from 
their  ludicrously  inanimate  features.  Melting 
hearts  under  lacquered  skins,  dissolving  little 
whimpers  under  perfunctory  attitudes. 

He  remembered  his  own  mood  of  a  few  moments 
ago,  and  explained  to  himself.  Something  had 
given  him  a  dream.  The  night  shining  through 
the  window,  the  curve  of  Rachel's  neck.  Rachel 
.  .  .  Rachel  ...  He  grew  suddenly  sick  with 
the  refrain  of  her  name.  It  said  itself  longingly  in 
his  thought  as  if  there  was  a  meaning  beyond  it. 

The  playing  had  stopped.  The  listeners  ap- 
peared to  be  lingering  dejectedly  among  its  echoes. 
Rachel  slipped  quickly  to  her  feet,  her  arms  thrust 


Sleep  67 

back  as  if  she  were  poised  for  running.  She 
passed  abruptly  across  the  room.  Her  behavior 
startled  him.  The  faces  looked  at  her  curiously. 
She  was  running  away. 

Anna  followed  her  quietly  into  the  vestibule  and 
the  company  burst  into  an  incongruous  babble. 
Dorn  listened  to  their  voices,  again  firm  and  self- 
sufficient,  chattering  formalities.  He  watched 
Rachel  adjusting  her  hat  with  over-eager  gestures. 
Her  eyes  were  avoiding  him.  She  seemed  breath- 
less, her  head  squirming  under  the  necessity  of 
having  to  remain  for  another  moment  before  the 
eyes  of  the  people  in  the  room. 

"I  must  go,"  she  said  suddenly.  Her  hand 
extended  itself  to  Anna.  A  frightened  smile 
widened  her  mouth.  Dorn  felt  her  eyes  center 
excitedly  on  him.  A  confused  desire  to  speak 
kept  him  silent.  He  stood  up  and  entered  the 
hall  to  play  his  little  part  as  host.  But  Rachel 
was  gone.  The  door  had  closed  behind  her  and 
he  stared  at  the  panels,  feeling  that  the  house  had 
emptied  itself.  Things  were  normal  again.  Anna 
was  speaking  to  her  guests,  smoothly  garrulous. 
They  were  putting  on  hats  and  saying  good-bye. 
They  would  have  to  hurry  to  escape  the  rain.  He 
assisted  with  wraps,  his  eyes  furtively  watching 
the  door  as  if  he  expected  to  see  it  open  again,  with 
Rachel  returning. 

"I've  really  had  a  wonderful  time,"  the  lavender 
stocking  was  shrilling.  He  became  solicitous  and 
followed  her  to  the  door,  walking  with  her  down 


68  Erik  Dorn 

the  housesteps.     A  moist  summer  night,  promising 
rain. 

But  the  street  was  empty  of  Rachel,  and  he 
returned. 


CHAPTER  VII 

'""THEY    were    in    their    bedroom    undressing. 
*      Outside,  the  night  rustled  with  an  approach- 
ing storm.     On  the  closed  windows  the  rain  began 
a  rattle  of  water.     A  wind  filled  the  darkness. 

"What  makes  you  act  so  strangely  to-night, 
Erik?" 

She  looked  at  him  as  she  stood  uncovering  her- 
self. She  desired  to  speak  with  a  disarming  casual- 
ness.  Instead,  her  words  came  with  a  sound  of 
tears  in  them.  He  was  always  strange — always 
going  away  from  her  until  she  had  to  close  her 
eyes  and  love  in  the  dark  without  trying  to  see 
him.  Now  he  might  go  to  war  and  be  killed. 
Something  would  happen.  "Something  .  .  . 
something  .  .  ."kept  murmuring  itself  in  her 
thought. 

"I  love  to  hear  you  play  to  a  crowd,"  he 
answered  good-humoredly. 

"Why?"  She  could  not  get  the  languor  out  of 
her  voice. 

"When  people  listen  to  music  it  always  reminds 
me  we  are  descended  from  fish.  God,  what  dolts! 
Minds  like  soft-bodied  sea  growths.  I  can  actually 
see  them  sometimes." 

"You  always  dislike  my  friends." 
69 


70  Erik  Dorn 

She  would  argue  with  him,  and  in  his  anger  his 
strangeness  would  go  away. 

"Your  friends?"  He  seemed  pleased  at  the 
chance  of  growing  angry.  "Allow  me  to  point 
out  to  you  that  the  assemblage  to-night  had  the 
distinction  of  being  my  friends.  I  discovered  the 
collection.  I  brought  them  to  the  house  first." 

"They  think  you're  wonderful."  She  would 
get  him  angry  that  way. 

"A  virtue,  I  admit.  But  it  doesn't  excuse  theii 
other  stupidities." 

They  seemed  to  have  nothing  to  argue  about. 
Anna  loosened  her  hair.  The  sight  of  it  rolling  in 
glistening  bronzes  and  reds  from  her  head  invari- 
ably gave  her  a  desire  to  cover  Erik's  face  in  it. 
With  his  face  buried  in  the  disordered  masses  of 
her  hair  she  would  feel  an  exquisite  fulhiess  of  love. 

"You  don't  think  Rachel  stupid,  do  you?" 

Dorn  felt  a  relief  at  the  sound  of  her  name.  His 
thought  was  full  of  her,  but  he  had  been  afraid  to 
talk. 

"Miss  Laskin,"  he  replied,  concealing  his  eager- 
ness for  the  topic  with  a  drawl,  "is  partially 
insane." 

"Yes,  you  like  insane  people,  though.  I  can 
always  tell  when  you  like  people.  You  never  pay 
any  attention  to  them  then,  but  sort  of  come  hang- 
ing around  me — as  if  you  were  apologizing  to  your- 
self for  liking  them,  and  doing  penance.  Or  you 
call  them  names." 

"Miss  Laskin,"  Dorn  answered,  delighted  to 


Sleep  71 

protract  the  conversation,  "is  a  vivid  sort  of  im- 
becile suffering  from  vacuous  complexities.  An 
hour  alone  in  a  room  with  her  would  drive  even  a 
philosopher  to  madness.  She's  one  of  the  kind  of 
people  given  to  inappropriate  silences.  She  re- 
minds me  of  an  emotion  undergoing  a  major  opera- 
tion. Good  Lord,  Anna,  don't  tell  me  you're 
jealous  of  her?' 

It  was  immaterial  whether  he  denounced  or 
upheld  Rachel.  To  talk  of  her  even  with  indigna- 
tion was  a  delight. 

Thunder  rolled,  and  he  became  silent.  Anna 
turned  her  nakedness  to  him.  Her  eyes,  grown 
dark,  beheld  a  yearning  and  a  sorrow. 

' '  Don't  talk  about  people, ' '  she  whispered.  ' '  I'm 
glad  you  hate  them — all  of  them." 

Her  nudity  always  surprised  Dorn.  Her  body 
seemed  always  to  have  grown  more  beautiful  and 
impersonal.  A  shout  of  rain  sounded  in  the  night 
and  a  chill  wind  burst  with  a  clatter  in  the  dark- 
ness. He  thought  of  Rachel  as  he  darkened  the 
room.  There  came  to  him  a  picture  of  her  walking 
in  the  rain  with  her  head  raised  and  laughing. 

Anna  lay  for  a  moment,  awed  by  the  suddenness 
of  the  storm.  She  turned  quickly,  her  arms 
reaching  hungrily  about  her  husband. 

"I  love  you,"  she  whispered.  "Oh,  I  love  you 
so  much.  My  own,  my  dearest!" 

She  felt  his  lips  touch  hers,  and  closed  her  eyes. 

"Tell  me  ..." 

Dorn  murmured  back  to  her,  "I  adore  you." 


72  Erik  Dorn 

A  little  laugh  came,  and  tears  reached  her 
cheeks. 

1 '  You  're  so  wonderful , ' '  she  whispered .  ' '  Think 
of  it!  It's  been  the  same  since  the  first  night. 
You  love  me — just  as  you  did." 

She  paused  questioningly — an  old  question  to 
which  he  gave  an  old  answer. 

"I  love  you  more." 

"I  know  it.  I  can  feel  it.  You  won't  ever  get 
tired  of  loving  me?" 

"Never — never  as  long  as  I  live." 

"Oh,  you  make  me  so  happy!" 

A  sigh  almost  like  a  moan  came  from  her 
heart. 

"Oh,  I'm  a  fool.  I  get  frightened  sometimes — 
when  I  hear  you  talk.  Something  takes  you  away. 
You  mustn't  ever  go  away.  Promise  me.  Listen, 
Erik."  She  dropped  into  a  panic.  "Promise  me 
you  won't  go  to  war." 

He  laughed. 

"That  was  only  talk,"  he  whispered.  "You 
should  know  my  talk  by  this  time." 

"I'll  never  know  you." 

"Please,  Anna,  don't.  You  hurt  me  when  you 
say  that." 

"And  when  you  were  silent,"  she  went  on 
softly,  "I  felt — I  felt  something  had  happened. 
Erik,  darling  Erik.  Oh,  you're  my  whole  life ! " 

"I  adore  you,  sweetest,"  he  murmured. 

"I  don't  live  except  in  you,  Erik.  And,  oh,  I'm 
a  fool.  Such  a  fool!" 


Sleep  73 

" You're  wonderful,"  he  interrupted.  He  was 
making  responses  in  an  old  ritual. 

"No,  I'm  not.  I'll  make  you  tired  of  me.  Tell 
me,  please.  Tell  me  you  love  me.  I  feel  you've 
never  told  me  it." 

"I  love  you  more  than  everything  else  in  life. 
More  than  everything." 

"Oh,  do  you,  Erik?" 

She  pressed  herself  closer  to  him,  and  he  felt 
her  body  like  the  heat  of  a  flame  avidly  caress 
him. 

"I  don't  want  you  any  different,  though,"  she 
whispered.  "  When  I  see  other  men  I  get  horrified 
to  think  that  you  might  become  like  them — if  you 
didn't  love  me.  Dead,  creepy  things.  Oh,  men 
are  horrible.  Talk  to  me,  Erik." 

"I  can't.  I  love  you.  What  else  is  there  to 
say  ? "  His  voice  trembled  and  her  mouth  pressed 
upon  his. 

"I  don't  deserve  such  happiness,"  she  said. 
Tears  from  her  eyes  fell  like  warm  wax  on  his 
shoulder.  Her  hands  were  fumbling  distractedly 
over  him. 

' '  Erik, ' '  she  gasped, ' '  my  Erik !     I  worship  you. ' ' 

The  storm  pounded  through  the  night,  leaping 
and  bellowing  in  a  halloo  of  sounds.  Dorn  tight- 
ened his  arms  mechanically  about  her  warm  flesh. 
His  lips  were  murmuring  tensely,  dramatically, 
"I  love  you.  I  love  you."  And  a  sadness  made 
a  little  warmth  in  his  heart.  He  was  alone  in  the 
night.  His  arms  and  words  were  engaged  in  an 


74  Erik  Dorn 

old  make-believe.  But  this  time  he  felt  himself 
further  away.  There  was  no  meaning.  .  .  . 

He  tried  vainly  to  think  of  Anna,  but  an  empti- 
ness crowded  even  her  name  out  of  his  mind.  His 
hands  were  returning  her  caresses,  mimicking  the 
eager  distraction  of  her  own.  His  mind,  removed 
as  if  belonging  elsewhere,  was  thinking  aimless 
little  words. 

There  was  a  storm  outside.  Lightning.  .  .  . 
The  war  was  taking  up  too  much  space  in  the 
paper.  Crowding  out  important  local  news.  The 
Germans  would  probably  get  to  Paris  soon  and 
put  an  end  to  it.  ...  Why  did  Rachel  run 
away?  Should  he  ask  her?  Sometime.  When 
he  saw  her.  Ask  her.  Ask  her.  .  .  .  His 
thought  drifted  into  a  blank.  Then  it  said  .  .  . 
' '  The  thing  is  meaningless.  Meaningless.  Houses, 
faces,  streets.  Nothing,  nothing.  There's 
nothing.  .  .  . " 

His  wife  lay  silent,  quivering  with  an  ecstasy. 
Her  arms  were  hungrily  choking  him.  Dorn 
closed  his  eyes  as  if  to  hide  himself.  His  lips  still 
murmured  in  a  monotone,  vague  as  the  voice  of  a 
stranger  in  his  ears — responses  in  an  old  ritual — 
4<I  love  you,  I  love  you!  Oh,  I  love  you  so 
much!  . 


PART  II 

DREAM 


75 


CHAPTER  I 

IN  the  evening  when  women  stand  washing 
dishes  in  the  kitchens  of  the  city,  men  light 
their  tobacco  and  open  newspapers.  Later,  the 
women  gather  up  the  crumpled  sheets  and  read. 

The  streets  of  the  city  spell  easy  words — poor, 
rich — neither. 

Here  in  one  part  live  the  grimy-faced  workers, 
their  sagging,  shapeless  women  and  their  litters  of 
children.  Their  windows  open  upon  broken  little 
streets  and  bubbling  alleys.  Idiot-faced  wooden 
houses  sprawl  over  one  another  with  their  rumps 
in  the  mud.  The  years  hammer  away — digesting 
the  paint  from  houses.  The  years  grind  away,  yet 
life  persists.  Beneath  the  grinding  of  the  years, 
life  gropes,  shrieks,  sweats.  And  in  the  evening 
men  light  their  tobacco  and  open  newspapers. 

Around  a  corner  the  boxes  commence.  One, 
two,  three,  four,  and  on  into  thousands  stand 
houses  made  of  stone,  and  their  regimental  ma- 
sonry is  like  the  ticking  of  a  clock.  Unvarying 
windows,  doors  identical — a  stereotype  of  roofs 
and  chimneys — these  hold  the  homes  of  the 
crowds.  Here  the  vague  faces  of  the  streets,  the 
hurrying,  enigmatic  figures  pumping  in  and  out 
of  offices  and  stores  gather  to  sleep  and  breed. 

77 


78  Erik  Dorn 

In  the  evening  the  crowds  drift  into  boxes.  The 
multiple  destinations  dwindle  suddenly  into  a 
monotone.  The  confusions  of  the  city's  traffic; 
the  winding  and  unwinding  herds  that  made  a 
picture  for  the  eyes  of  Erik  Dorn,  individualize 
into  little  human  solitudes.  The  stone  houses 
stand  ticking  away  the  years,  and  within  them 
men  and  women  tick.  Doors  open  and  shut, 
lights  go  on  and  off,  day  and  night  drop  a  tick- 
tock  across  miles  of  roofs.  And  in  the  hour  of  the 
washing  of  dishes  men  kindle  their  tobacco  and 
read  the  newspapers. 

Slowly,  timidly,  the  city  moves  away  from  the 
little  stone  boxes.  Automobiles  and  trees  appear. 
Here  begin  the  ornaments.  Marble,  bronze, 
carved  and  painted  brick — a  filigree  and  a  scroll- 
work— put  forth  claims.  The  lords  of  the  city 
stand  girthed  in  ornaments.  Knight  and  satrap 
have  changed  somewhat.  Moat  and  battlement 
grimace  but  faintly  from  behind  their  ornaments. 
The  tick-tock  s©unds  through  the  carouse.  Sleek, 
suave  men  and  languorous,  desirable  women  sit 
amid  elaborations,  sleep  and  breed  in  ornamental 
beds.  Power  wears  new  masks.  Leadership  has 
improved  its  table  manners,  its  plumbing,  and  its 
God. 

Beautiful  clocks,  massive  with  griffiens  and 
gargoyles,  nymphs  and  scrollwork — they  shelter 
heroes.  But  heroes  have  changed.  Destiny  no 
longer  passes  in  the  night — a  masked  horseman 
riding  a  lonely  road.  Instead,  an  old  watchmaker 


Dream  79 

winds  up  clocks,  sleek  men  and  desirable  women. 
In  the  inner  offices  of  the  city  the  new  heroes  sit 
through  the  day,  watchmakers  themselves,  wind- 
ing and  unwinding  the  immemorial  crowds  with 
new  devices.  But  in  the  evening  they  too  return 
to  their  ornamental  boxes,  and  under  Pompeian 
lamps,  amid  Renaissance  tapestries,  open  news- 
papers. 

Alley  box  and  manor,  the  tick-tock  of  the  city 
has  them  all.  Paved  streets  and  window-pitted 
walls  beat  out  a  monotone.  Lust  and  dream  turn 
sterile  eyes  to  the  night.  The  great  multiple 
tick-tock  of  the  city  waits  another  hour  to  pass. 

Wait,  it  reads  a  newspaper.  On  the  west  side 
of  the  city  a  man  named  Joseph  Pryzalski  has 
murdered  a  woman  he  loved,  beating  her  head  in 
with  an  ax,  and  subsequently  cut  his  own  throat 
with  a  razor.  At  the  inquest  there  will  be  ex- 
hibited a  note  scribbled  on  a  piece  of  wrapping- 
paper  still  redolent  with  herring  .  .  .  "God  in 
heaven,  forgive  me!  She  is  dead.  It  is  better. 
Oh,  God,  now  my  turn!"  Deplorable  incident. 

In  the  next  column  the  exploits  of  three  young 
men  armed  with  guns.  Entering  a  bank,  the 
three  young  men  shot  and  killed  Henry  J.  Sloane, 
cashier;  held  half  a  dozen  other  names  at  bay, 
loaded  their  pockets  with  money,  and  escaped  in  a 
black  automobile.  The  police  are,  fortunately, 
combing  the  city  for  the  three  young  men  and  the 
black  automobile.  Thank  God  for  the  police 
moving  cautiously  through  the  streets  with  a 


8o  Erik  Dora 

large,  a  magnificent  comb  that  will  soon  pick  the 
three  young  men,  their  three  guns,  and  their 
symbolical  black  automobile  out  of  the  city. 

Next,  the  daily  report  of  excitements  in  Europe. 
The  Austrian  army  has  been  annihilated.  A  part 
of  the  German  army,  seemingly  the  most  impor- 
tant part,  has  also  been  annihilated.  Day  by 
day  the  armies  of  the  Allies  continue  to  devour, 
obliterate,  grind  into  dust  the  armies  of  the 
Kaiser.  Bulletin — black  type  demanding  quick 
eye — twenty  thousand  unsuspecting  Prussians 
walking  across  a  bridge  on  the  Meuse  were  blown 
up  and  completely  annihilated.  This  occurred 
on  a  Monday.  In  the  teeth  of  these  persistent 
and  vigorous  annihilations,  the  Huns  still  continue 
their  atrocities.  Shame!  In  Liege,  on  a  Tues- 
day, the  blood-dripping  Huns  added  another 
horror  to  their  list  of  revolting  crimes.  Three 
citizens  of  Liege  were  executed.  They  died  like 
heroes.  There  are  other  items  on  this  general 
subject,  including  a  message  from  the  Pope. 

Alongside  the  war,  as  if  in  a  next  room,  a  woman 
has  shot  her  lover  on  learning  he  was  a  married 
man.  ''Beauty  Slays  Soul-Mate;  Shoots  Self." 
.  .  .  Annihilation  on  a  smaller  but  more  in- 
teresting scale,  this. 

A  street-car  has  crashed  into  a  brewery  wagon 
and  at  the  bottom  of  the  column  a  taxi  has  run 
over  a  golden-haired  little  girl  at  play. 

But  why  has  Raymond  S.  Cotton,  wealthy 
clubman  and  financier  and  prominent  in  north- 


Dream  81 

shore  society  circles,  disappeared?  Society  circles 
are  agog.  Sometimes  society  circles  are  merely 
disturbed.  But  they  are  always  active.  Society 
circles  are  always  running  around  waving  lorgnettes 
and  exclaiming,  "Dear  me,  and  what  do  you  think 
of  this?  I  am  all  agog."  The  police  are  combing 
the  city  for  a  woman  in  black  last  seen  with  the 
prominent  Mr.  Cotton  in  a  notorious  cafe.  But  a 
man  is  to  be  hanged  in  the  County  Jail.  "The 
doomed  man  ate  a  hearty  breakfast  of  ham  and 
eggs  and  seemed  in  good  spirits."  Fancy  that! 

"Flames  Destroy  Warehouse,  Two  Firemen 
Hurt."  This,  in  small  apologetic  type  like  a  foot- 
note on  a  timetable.  Inconsiderate  firemen  who 
take  up  important  space  on  a  crowded  day ! 

Apology  ceases.  Here  is  something  that  re- 
quires no  apology.  It  is  extremely  important. 
Wilbur  Jennings,  prominent  architect,  has  defied 
the  world  and  departed  for  a  Love  Bungalow  in 
Minnesota  with  another  man's  wife.  A  picture 
of  Wilbur  in  flowing  bow  tie  and  set  jaws  defying 
the  world.  Also  of  his  inamorata  in  a  ball  gown, 
eyes  lowered  to  a  rose  drooping  from  her  hand. 
Various  wives  and  chubby-faced  children,  and  the 
inamorata's  Siberian  hound,  "Jasper."  What 
he  said.  What  she  said.  What  they  said.  Opin- 
ions of  three  ministers,  roused  on  the  telephone 
by  inquiring  reporters.  The  three  divines  are 
unanimous.  But  Wilbur's  tie  remains  defiant. 

Arm  in  arm  with  Wilbur,  his  tie  and  his  troubles, 
his  epigrams  and  his  Love  Bungalow,  sits  an  epi- 


82  Erik  Dorn 

demic  of  clairvoyants.  There  is  an  epidemic  of 
clairvoyants  in  the  city.  Five  widows  have  been 
swindled.  The  police  are  combing  the  city  for 
...  a  prominent  professor  of  sociology  on  the 
faculty  of  the  local  university  interrupts.  The 
prominent  professor  has  been  captured  in  a  lead- 
ing Loop  hotel  whither  he  had  gone  to  divert  him- 
self with  a  suitcase,  a  handbook  on  sex  hygiene, 
and  an  admiring  co-ed. 

This,  waiting  for  an  hour  to  pass,  the  city  reads. 
Crimes,  scandals,  horrors,  holocausts,  burglaries, 
arsons,  murders,  deceptions.  The  city  reads 
with  a  vague,  dull  skepticism.  Who  are  these 
people  of  the  newspaper  columns  ?  Lusting  scoun- 
drels, bandits,  heroes,  wild  lovers,  madmen?  Not 
in  the  streets  or  the  houses  that  tick-tock  through 
the  night.  .  .  .  Somewhere  else.  A  troupe  of 
mummers  wandering  unseen  behind  the  great  clock 
face  of  the  city — an  always  unknown  troupe  of 
rascally  mummers  for  whom  the  police  are  con- 
tinually combing  and  setting  large  dragnets. 

In  the  evening  men  light  their  tobacco  and  read 
the  little  wooden  phrases  of  the  press  that  squeal 
and  mumble  the  sagas  of  the  lawbreakers.  Women 
come  from  the  washing  of  dishes  and  eating  of 
food  and  pick  up  the  crumpled  pages.  ...  A 
scavenger  digging  for  the  disgusts  and  abnormali- 
ties of  life,  is  the  press.  A  yellow  journal  of  lies, 
idiocies,  filth.  Ignoring  the  wholesome,  splendid 
things  of  life — the  fine,  edifying  beat  of  the  tick- 
tock.  Yet  they  read,  glancing  dully  at  headlines, 


Dream  83 

devouring  monotonously  the  luridness  beneath 
headlines.  They  read  with  an  irritation  and  a 
vague  wonder.  Tick,  say  the  streets,  and  tock, 
say  the  houses ;  and  within  them  men  and  women 
tick.  To  work  and  home  again.  Home  again  and 
to  work.  New  shoes  grow  old.  New  seasons 
vanish.  Years  grind.  Life  sinks  slowly  away 
with  a  tick-tock  on  its  lips. 

Yet  each  evening  comes  the  ragged  twopenny 
minstrel — a  blear-eyed,  croaking  minstrel,  and 
the  good  folk  give  him  ear.  No  pretty  words  in 
rhythms  from  his  tongue.  No  mystic  cadences 
quaver  in  his  voice.  Yet  he  comes  squealing  out 
his  song  of  an  endless  "Extra!  All  about  the 
mysteries  and  the  torments  of  life.  All  about  the 
raptures,  lusts,  and  adventures  that  the  day  has 
spilled.  Read  'em  and  weep!  Read  'em  and 
laugh!  Here's  the  latest,  hot  off  the  presses,  from 
dreamers  and  lawbreakers.  Extra ! ' ' 

Thus  the  city  sits,  baffled  by  itself,  looking  out 
upon  a  tick-tock  of  windows  and  reading  with 
a  wonder  in  its  thought,  "Who  are  these 
people?  .  .  ." 


CHAPTER   II 

AT  ten  o'clock  the  courts  of  the  city  crowd  up. 
The  important  gentlemen  who  devote  them- 
selves to  sending  people  to  jail  and  to  preventing 
them  from  being  sent  to  jail,  appear  with  fat  books 
under  their  arms  and  brief-cases  in  their  hands. 
They  have  slept  well  and  eaten  well  and  have 
arrived  at  their  tasks  with  clear  heads  containing 
arguments.  These  are  arguments  vastly  more 
important  than  poems  that  writers  make  or  his- 
tories that  dreamers  invent.  For  they  are  ar- 
rangements of  words  which  function  in  the  absence 
of  God.  God  is  not  exactly  absent,  to  be  sure, 
since  the  memory  of  Him  lingers  in  the  hearts  of 
men.  But  it  is  a  vague  memory  and  at  times 
unreliable.  It  would  appear  that  He  was  on  earth 
only  for  a  short  interval  and  failed  to  make  any 
decided  impression. 

Therefore,  at  ten  o'clock,  the  courts  crowd  up 
and  the  important  gentlemen  bristling  with  sub- 
stitute arrangements  of  words,  address  themselves 
to  the  daily  business  of  demonstrating  whether 
people  have  done  right  or  wrong,  and  proving,  or 
disproving  also,  how  extensive  are  the  sins  which 
have  been  committed.  Arrangements  of  words 
palaver  with  arrangements  of  words.  There  en- 


Dream  85 

sues  a  vast  shuffling  of  words,  a  drone  and  a  gurgle 
of  syllables.  The  Case  of  the  State  of  Illinois 
Versus  Man.  Order  in  the  Court  Room.  "No 
talking,  please  .  .  . "  "  If  it  Please  Your  Honor, 
the  Issue  involved  in  this  case  is  identical  with 
the  Issue  as  explicitly  set  forth  in  the  Case  of  Mat- 
thews Versus  Matthews,  Illinois  Sixth,  Chapter 
Eight,  Page  ninety  two,  in  which  in  the  Third  Para- 
graph the  Supreme  Court  decided."  The  Court 
Instructs  the  Jury,  "You  are  to  be  Guided  by  the 
Law  as  given  You  in  these  instructions  and  by 
the  Facts  as  admitted  in  Evidence  of  the  Case ;  the 
court  Instructs  the  jury  they  are  the  judges  of  the 
law  as  well  as  of  the  fact  but  the  Court  further  in- 
structs the  Jury  before  You  decide  for  Yourselves 
that  the  Law  is  Otherwise  than  as  given  you  by 
the  Court,  you  are  to  exercise  great  Care  and 
Caution  in  arriving  at  your  decision.  .  .  . " 
" Gentlemen,  have  you  arrived  at  your  verdict?" 
"We  have."  "Let  the  clerk  be  handed  the  ver- 
dict." "We  the  Jury  find  the  Defendant  .  .  ." 
Thus  the  tick-tock  of  the  great  city  grown  stern 
and  audible,  grown  verbose  and  insistent,  speaks 
aloud  in  the  courts.  And  here  huddled  on  benches 
are  the  little  troupes  of  mummers  who  have  com- 
mitted crimes.  The  mysterious  sprinkling  of 
marionettes  not  wound  up  by  the  watchmaker. 
Names  that  solidify  for  a  moment  into  the  ink 
headlines.  Lusts,  dreams,  greeds,  and  manias 
sitting  sad-faced  and  dolorous-eyed  listening  to  a 
drone  and  a  gurgle  of  words.  Alas!  The  evil- 


86  Erik  Dorn 

• 

doers  and  the  doers  of  good  bear  a  fatuous  resem- 
blance to  each  other.  God  Himself  might  well  be 
confused  by  this  curious  fact.  But  fortunately 
there  are  arrangements  of  words  capable  of  adjust- 
ing themselves  to  confusion,  capable  of  tick-tock- 
ing  in  the.  midst  of  disorder.  Tick,  say  the  words 
and  tock  say  the  juries.  Tick-tock,  the  cell  door 
and  the  scaffold  drop.  Streets  and  windows, 
paintings  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  beds  of  the  fifty- 
cent  prostitutes,  cannon  at  Verdun  and  police 
whistles  on  crossings;  the  Pop~  in  Rome,  the  Presi- 
dent in  Washington,  the  man  hunting  the  alleys 
for  a  handout,  the  languorous  women  breeding 
in  ornamental  beds — all  say  a  tick-tock.  Behind 
the  arrangements  of  words,  confusion  strikes  a  pos- 
ture of  guilt,  strikes  a  posture  of  innocence.  God 
Himself  were  a  dolt  to  interfere.  For  if  the  song 
of  the  angels  is  somehow  other  than  the  tick-tock 
of  men,  the  song  of  the  angels  is  a  music  for  heaven 
and  the  tick-tock  of  men  is  a  restful  drone  in  which 
the  city  hides  the  mysteries  non-essential  to  the 
progress  and  pattern  of  its  streets. 


CHAPTER  III 

IN  and  out  of  the  crowded  courtrooms  of  the  city 
George  Hazlitt  pursued  his  career.  Buried  in 
the  babble  of  words,  his  voice  sounded  from  day 
to  day  with  a  firm,  self-conscious  vigor.  To  the 
thousand  and  one  droners  about  him,  the  law  was 
a  remunerative  game  in  which  one  matched  plati- 
tude with  bromide,  legal  precedent  of  the  State 
of  Illinois  with  legal  precedent  of  the  State  of  In- 
diana; in  which  right  and  wrong  were  a  shuffle  of 
words  and  the  wages  of  sin  dependent  upon  the 
depth  of  a  counselor's  wits. 

There  was  in  Hazlitt,  however,  a  puritanical 
fervor  which  withstood  the  lure  of  expediency. 
He  entered  the  courts  not  to  juggle  with  words, 
fence  for  loopholes  out  of  which  to  drag  dubious 
acquittals  for  his  clients.  His  profession  was  a 
part  of  his  nature.  He  saw  it  as  a  battle  ground 
on  which,  under  the  babbling  and  droning,  good 
and  evil  stood  at  unending  grips.  Good  always 
triumphing.  Evil  always  going  to  jail  despite 
habeas  corpuses,  writs,  and  duces  tecums. 

To  question  the  nobility  of  the  Hazlitt  soul 
would  be  a  sidestepping.  There  were  among  his 
friends,  men  of  dubious  integrity  with  elastic 
scruples  and  pliable  consciences.  But  skepticism 

87 


88  Erik  Dorn 

thrust  in  vain  at  the  Hazlitt  armor.  In  him  had 
been  authentically  born  the  mania  for  conformity. 
He  was  a  prosecutor  by  birth.  Against  that  which 
did  not  conform,  against  all  that  squirmed  for 
some  expression  beyond  the  tick-tock  of  life,  he 
was  a  force — an  apostle  with  a  sword.  Men  pre- 
tending virtues  as  relentless  as  his  own  were  often 
inclined  to  eye  him  askance.  Virtue  breeds 
skepticism  among  the  virtuous.  But  there  was  a 
difference  about  Hazlitt. 

The  basis  of  his  philosophy  was  twofold.  It 
embraced  a  rage  against  dreamers  and  a  rage 
against  lawbreakers.  Lawbreakers  were  men  and 
women  who  sacrificed  the  welfare  and  safety  of  the 
many  for  the  sating  of  their  individual  greeds  and 
lusts.  He  viewed  the  activities  of  lawbreakers 
with  a  sense  of  personal  outrage.  He,  Hazlitt, 
was  a  part  of  society — a  conscious  unit  of  a  state 
of  mind,  which  state  of  mind  was  carefully  written 
out  in  text-book  editorials,  and  on  tablets  handed 
down  by  God  from  a  mountaintop.  Men  who 
robbed,  cheated,  beat  their  wives,  deserted  their 
families,  seduced  women,  shirked  responsibilities, 
were  enemies  on  his  own  threshold.  They  must 
be  punished,  mentally,  by  him ;  physically  by  the 
society  to  which  he  belonged. 

The  punishing  of  evil-doers  did  more  than 
eliminate  them  from  his  threshold.  It  vindicated 
his  own  virtue.  Virtue  increases  in  direct  propor- 
tion with  its  ability  to  distinguish  evil.  The  de- 
nunciation of  evil-doers  was  the  boasting  of  George 


Dream  89 

Hazlitt,  "I  am  not  one  of  them."  The  more 
vigorous  the  denunciation,  the  more  vigorous  the 
boast.  The  hanging  of  a  man  for  the  crime  of 
murder  was  a  reward  paid  to  George  Hazlitt  for 
his  abstinence  from  bloodshed.  The  jailing  of  a 
seducer  offered  a  tangible  recompense  for  the  self- 
denial  which  he,  as  a  non-seducer,  practiced. 

Apart  from  the  satisfactions  his  virtue  derived 
in  establishing  its  superiority  by  assisting  spiritu- 
ally in  the  punishment  of  the  unvirtuous,  his  rage 
against  lawbreakers  found  itself  equally  on  his 
devotion  to  law.  He  perceived  in  the  orderly 
streets,  in  the  miles  of  houses,  in  the  smoothly 
functioning  commerce  and  government  of  his  day, 
a  triumph  of  man  over  his  baser  selves.  The  baser 
selves  of  man  were  instincts  that  yearned  for  dis- 
order. Of  this  triumph  Hazlitt  felt  himself  a  part. 

Disorder  he  thought  not  only  illegal,  but  debas- 
ing. The  same  virtue  which  prevented  him  from 
promenading  in  his  pajamas  in  the  boulevard 
stirred  with  a  feeling  of  outrage  against  the  con- 
fusion attending  a  street-car  strike.  His  intelli- 
gence, clinging  like  some  militant  parasite  to  the 
stability  of  life,  resented  all  agitations,  material 
or  spiritual,  all  violators  who  violated  the 
equilibrium  to  which  he  was  fastened. 

Against  dreamers  his  rage  was  even  deeper  and 
more  a  part  of  his  fiber.  In  the  tick-tock  of  life 
Hazlitt  saw  a  perfection — an  evolution  out  of 
centuries  of  mania  and  disorder.  The  tick-tock 
was  a  perfection  whose  basic  principle  was  a  re- 


90  Erik  Dorn 

spect  for  others.  This  respect  evolved  out  of  man's 
fear  of  man  and  insuring  a  mutual  protection 
against  his  predatory  habits,  was  to  Hazlitt  a 
religion.  He  denied  himself  pleasures  and  conven- 
ient expressions  for  his  impulses  in  order  to  spare 
others  displeasure  and  inconvenience.  And  his 
nature  demanded  a  similar  sacrifice  of  his  fellows 
— as  a  reward  and  a  symbol  of  his  own  correctness. 
Such  explanation  of  his  conduct  as,  it  is  easier  to 
follow  the  desires  of  others  than  to  give  expres- 
sion to  the  desires  of  one's  self,  would  have  been, 
to  Hazlitt,  spiritual  and  legal  sacrilege. 

In  dreamers,  the  rising  young  attorney  sensed  a 
poorly  concealed  effort  to  evade  this  primal  re- 
sponsibility toward  him  and  the  society  of  which 
he  was  an  inseparable  part.  Men  who  walked 
with  their  heads  in  the  clouds  were  certain  to  step 
on  one's  feet.  Dreamers  were  scoundrels  or  luna- 
tics who  sought  to  justify  their  unfitness  for  society 
by  ridiculing  it  as  unworthy  and  by  phantasizing 
over  new  values  and  standards  which  would  be 
more  amiable  to  their  weaknesses.  There  were 
political  dreamers  and  dreamers  in  morals  and 
art.  Hazlitt  bunched  them  together,  branded 
them  with  an  identical  rage,  and  spat  them  out  in 
one  word,  "nuts." 

Dreamers  challenged  his  sense  of  superiority 
by  hinting  at  soul  states  and  social  states  superior 
to  those  he  already  occupied.  Dreamers  disturbed 
him.  For  this  he  perhaps  hated  them  most. 
Their  phantasies  sometimes  lifted  him  into  mo- 


Dream  91 

ments  of  disorder,  moments  of  doubt  as  revolting 
to  his  spirit  as  were  sores  revolting  to  his  skin. 
Then  also,  dreamers  had  their  champions — men 
and  women  who  applauded  their  lunatic  writings 
and  cheered  their  lunatic  theories. 

The  punishment  of  lawbreakers  vindicated  his 
own  virtue.  But  his  rage  against  dreamers  was 
such  that  their  punishing  offered  him  no  sense  of 
satisfactory  vindication.  His  railing  and  ridicule 
against  creatures  who  yearned,  grimaced — neu- 
rasthenics, in  short —  left  him  with  no  fine  feeling 
of  the  victorious  sufficiency  of  himself.  Thus  to 
conceal  himself  from  doubts  always  threatening 
an  appearance,  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  assume 
a  viciousness  of  attitude  not  entirely  sincere.  So 
he  read  with  unction  political  speeches  and  art 
reviews  denouncing  the  phantasts  of  his  day,  and 
from  them  he  borrowed  elaborate  invective.  Yet 
his  invective  seemed  like  a  vague  defense  of  him- 
self who  should  need  no  defense  and  thus  again 
doubt  raised  a  dim  triumph  in  his  heart. 

' '  Yes,  I'm  a  reactionary, ' '  he  would  say.  "I'm 
for  the  good  old  things  of  life.  Things  that  mean 
something."  And  even  this  definition  of  faith 
would  leave  him  unsatisfied. 

The  paradox  of  George  Hazlitt  lay  in  the  fact 
that  he  was  himself  a  dreamer.  Champions  of 
order  and  champions  of  disorder  share  somewhat 
in  a  similarity  of  imaginative  impulses. 

Six  months  had  passed  since  Hazlitt  had  wept 
on  the  stairs  as  he  left  Rachel's  room.  Dry-eyed 


92  Erik  Dorn 

now  and  clear-headed,  he  sat  one  winter  afternoon 
against  his  chosen  background — the  swarm  and 
clutter  of  a  law  court.  His  brief-cases  were 
packed.  His  law  books  had  been  bundled  back 
to  his  office. 

He  was  waiting  beside  a  vivid-faced  young 
woman  who  sat  twisting  a  tear-damp  handker- 
chief in  her  hands.  The  jury  that  had  listened  for 
three  weeks  to  the  tale  of  the  young  woman's  mur- 
der of  a  hospital  interne  who  had  seduced  and 
subsequently  refused  to  marry  her,  had  sauntered 
out  of  the  jury-box  to  determine  now  whether  the 
young  woman  should  be  hanged,  imprisoned,  or 
liberated.  The  excitements  attending  the  trial 
had  brought  a  reaction  to  Hazlitt.  He  seemed 
suddenly  to  have  lost  interest  in  the  business  of 
his  defense  of  the  wronged  young  woman.  This 
despite  that  he  had  for  three  weeks  maintained  a 
high  pitch  of  rage  against  the  scoundrel  who  had 
violated  his  client  and  subsequently  driven  her 
insane  by  even  more  abominable  cruelties. 

Hazlitt 's  concluding  remarks  to  the  jury  on  the 
subject  of  dishonored  womanhood  and  the  merci- 
less bestiality  of  certain  male  types  had  been  more 
than  a  legal  oration.  He  had  expressed  himself  in 
it  and  had  spent  two  full  days  lost  in  admiration 
of  the  echoes  of  his  bombast.  .  .  .  "Men  who 
follow  the  vile  dictates  of  their  lower  natures,  who 
sow  the  whirlwind  and  expect  to  reap  the  roses 
thereby;  cynical,  soulless  men  who  take  a  woman 
as  one  takes  a  glove,  to  wear,  admire,  and  discard ; 


Dream  93 

depraved  men  who  prowl  like  demons  at  the  heels 
of  virtue,  fawning  their  ways  into  the  pure  heart 
of  innocence  and  glutting  their  beastly  hungers 
upon  the  finest  fruits  of  life — the  beauty  and  sacri- 
fice of  a  maiden's  first  love — are  such  creatures 
men  or  fiends,  gentlemen  of  the  jury  ? "  And  then 
.  .  .  "spurned,  taunted  by  the  sneers  of  one  of 
these  vipers,  her  pleadings  answered  with  laughter 
and  blows  of  a  fist,  the  soul  of  Pauline  Pollard 
grew  suddenly  dark.  Where  had  been  sanity, 
innocence,  and  love,  now  came  insanity.  Her 
girl's  mind — like  sweet  bells  jangled  out  of  tune — 
brought  no  longer  the  high  message  of  reason  into 
her  heart.  We  sitting  here  in  this  sunny  court- 
room, gentlemen,  can  think  and  reason.  But 
Pauline  Pollard,  struggling  in  the  embrace  of  a 
leering  savage,  listening  to  his  fiendish  mockeries 
of  her  virtue — the  virtue  he  had  stolen  from  her — 
ah !  the  soul  and  brain  of  Pauline  Pollard  vanished 
in  a  darkness.  The  law  is  the  law,  gentlemen. 
There  is  no  one  respects  it  more  than  I.  If  this 
girl  killed  a  man  coldly  and  with  reason  function- 
ing in  her  mind,  she  is  guilty.  Hang  her,  gentle- 
men of  the  jury!  But,  gentlemen,  the  law  under 
which  we  live,  you  and  I  and  all  of  us,  also  says, 
and  says  wisely,  that  a  mind  not  responsible  for 
its  acts,  a  soul  whose  balance  has  been  destroyed 
by  the  shrieking  voices  of  mania,  shall  not  be  held 
guilty.  ..." 

The  jury  that  had  listened  with  ill-concealed 
envy  to  the  recital  of  the  amorous  interne's  promis- 


94  Erik  Dorn 

cuous  exploits,  listened  to  Hazlitt  and  experienced 
suddenly  a  fine  rage  against  the  deceased.  Out 
of  the  young  attorney's  florid  utterings  a  question 
fired  itself  into  the  minds  of  the  jurors.  The  de- 
ceased had  done  what  they  all  desired  to  do,  but 
dared  not.  This  grinning,  unscrupulous  fiend  of 
a  hospital  interne  had  blithely  taken  what  he 
desired  and  blithely  discarded  what  he  did  not 
desire.  The  twelve  good  men  and  true  bethought 
them  of  their  wives  whom  they  did  not  desire  and 
yet  kept.  And  of  the  young  women  and  the 
things  of  flesh  and  spirit  they  desired  with  every 
life-beat  in  them  and  yet  did  not  take.  Was  this 
terrible  denial  which,  for  reasons  beyond  their 
incomplete  brains,  they  imposed  upon  themselves, 
a  meaningless,  profitless  business?  The  bland 
interne  was  dead  and  unfortunately  beyond  their 
punishment.  Yet  the  fact  that  he  had  lived  at 
all  called  for  a  protest — some  definitely  framed 
expression  which  would  throw  a  halo  about  their 
own  submission  to  women  they  did  not  desire,  and 
their  own  denial  to  women  they  did  desire.  The 
law,  whose  arrangements  of  words  are  omniscient, 
provided  such  a  halo. 

Dr.  Hamel,  the  interne  under  discussion,  was 
dead  and  buried,  and  therefore,  properly  speaking, 
not  on  trial.  Nor  yet  was  Pauline  Pollard  on 
trial.  The  persons  on  trial  were  twelve  good  men 
and  true  who  were  being  called  upon  to  decide, 
somewhat  dramatically,  whether  they  were  right 
in  living  in  a  manner  persistently  repugnant  to 


Dream  95 

them ;  whether  somebody  else  could  get  away  with 
something  which  they  themselves,  not  daring  to 
attempt,  bitterly  identified  as  sin. 

In  thirty  minutes  the  still  outraged  jury  was 
to  file  in  and  utter  its  dignified  protest.  Pauline 
Pollard  would  again  be  free.  And  twelve  men 
would  return  to  their  homes  with  a  high  sense  of 
having  meted  out  justice,  not  to  Pauline  or  her 
amorous  interne,  but  to  themselves. 

Enticing  speculation,  the  yes  or  no  of  these 
twelve  men,  three  days  ago.  But  now  Hazlitt 
sat  with  an  odd  indifference  in  his  thought.  The 
crowd  waiting  avidly  for  the  dramatic  moment  of 
the  verdict;  living  vicariously  the  suspense  of  the 
defendant — depressed  him.  The  newspaper  re- 
porters buzzing  around,  forming  themselves  into 
relays  between  the  press  table  and  the  door,  fur- 
ther depressed  him.  He  felt  himself  somewhere 
else,  and  the  scene  was  a  reality  which  intruded. 

There  was  a  dream  in  Hazlitt  which  sometimes 
turned  itself  on  like  a  light  and  revealed  the  empti- 
ness of  life  without  Rachel,  the  emptiness  of  court- 
rooms, verdicts,  crowds.  Yes,  even  the  emptiness 
of  the  struggle  between  good  and  evil.  He  sat 
thinking  of  her  now,  contrasting  the  virginal  figure 
of  her  with  the  coarseness  of  the  thing  in  which  he 
had  been  engaged.  There  was  something  about  her 
.  .  .  something  .  .  .  something.  And  the  old 
refrain  of  his  dream  like  a  haunting  popular  ballad, 
started  again  here  in  the  crowded  courtroom. 

He  remembered  the  eyes  of  Rachel,  the  quick 


96  Erik  Dorn 

gestures  of  her  full-grown  hands  that  moved  al- 
ways as  in  sudden  afterthoughts.  Virginal  was 
the  word  that  came  most  often  to  his  thought.  Not 
the  virginity  that  spells  a  piquant  preface  to 
sensualism.  She  would  always  be  virginal,  even 
after  they  were  married.  In  his  arms  she  would 
remain  virginal,  because  there  was  something  in 
her,  something  beyond  flesh.  His  heart  choked 
at  the  memory  of  it,  and  his  face  saddened.  Some- 
thing he  could  not  see  or  place  in  a  circle  of  words, 
that  did  not  exist  for  his  eyes  or  his  thought,  and 
yet  that  he  must  follow.  Even  after  he  had  won 
her  there  would  be  this  thing  he  could  not  see; 
that  trailed  a  dream  song  in  his  heart  and  kept 
him  groping  toward  the  far  lips  of  the  singer. 
Yes,  they  would  marry.  She  had  refused  to  see 
him  twice  since  the  night  he  had  wept  on  the  stair, 
leaving  her.  But  the  memories  of  that  night  had 
adjusted  themselves.  He  had  seen  love  in  the 
eyes  of  Rachel  as  he  held  her  hand.  She  had 
laughed  love  to  him,  given  him  for  an  instant  the 
vision  of  beauty-lighted  places  waiting  for  him. 
The  rest  had  been  .  .  .  neurasthenia.  Thus 
he  had  forgotten  her  words  and  his  tears  and  the 
vivid  moment  when  he  had  seen  himself  reflected 
in  her  eyes  as  a  horror.  He  had  tried  twice  to  see 
her.  He  would  continue  trying,  and  some  day 
she  would  again  open  the  door  to  him,  laughing, 
whispering  .  .  .  "I'm  so  lonely.  I'm  glad 
you've  come."  In  the  meantime  he  would  con- 
tinue sending  her  letters.  Once  each  week  he 


Dream  97 

had  been  writing  her,  saying  he  loved  her.  No 
answers  had  come.  But  this,  curiously,  did  not 
anger  him.  He  wrote  not  so  much  to  Rachel  as 
to  a  dream  of  her.  She  remained  intact  in  her 
silence  ...  as  he  knew  her  ...  an  aloof, 
virginal  being  whose  presence  in  the  world  was  its 
own  song. 

There  was  a  commotion.  Hazlitt  looked  about 
him  and  saw  strange  faces  light  up,  strange  eyes 
gleam  out  of  the  electric-glowing  dusk.  Snow 
was  falling  outside.  Pauline's  hand  gripped  his 
forearm.  Her  fingers  burned.  Raps  of  a  gavel 
for  silence.  The  judge  spoke.  A  sad-faced  man, 
with  a  heavy  mustache  combating  his  words,  stood 
up  in  the  jury-box  and  spoke.  In  a  vast  silence 
a  clerk  beside  the  judge's  bench  cleared  his  voice, 
moistened  his  lips,  and  spoke. 

So  he  had  won  another  case.  Pauline  was  free. 
Snow  outside  and  rows  of  lighted  windows.  She 
was  overwrought.  Let  her  weep  for  a  spell. 
Snow  outside.  Three  weeks  and  one  day.  Every- 
body seemed  happy  with  the  verdict.  People 
were  good  at  heart.  A  triumph  for  decency 
cheered  them.  People  were  not  revengeful  at 
heart,  only  decent.  Congratulations  .  .  . 
"Thank  you,  thank  you!  No,  Miss  Pollard  has 
nothing  to  say  now.  She  is  too  overcome.  To- 
morrow .  .  ."  The  persistent  press !  What  did 
they  expect  her  to  say?  Absurd  the  way  they 
kept  interviewing  her.  The  snow  would  probably 
tie  up  traffic.  Eat  down-town  .  .  . 


98  Erik  Dorn 

"If  you're  ready,  Miss  Pollard." 

"Oh,  I  must  thank  the  jurors." 

Handshakes.  Twelve  good  men  with  relaxed 
faces.  "There,  there,  little  woman.  Start  over. 
We  only  did  our  duty  and  what  was  right  by  you." 

Everybody  stretched  his  legs.  Mrs.  Hamel 
was  sobbing.  Well,  she  was  his  mother.  It 
would  only  have  satisfied  her  lower  instincts  of 
vengeance  to  have  jailed  Pauline. 

"All  right,  Miss  Pollard."  He  took  her  arm. 
Curious,  what  a  difference  the  verdict  had  made 
in  her.  She  was  a  woman  like  any  other  woman 
now.  .  .  .  His  overcoat  might  do  for  another 
season.  .  .  .  Pretty  girl.  Hard  to  get  used  to 
the  idea  she  wasn't  a  defendant. 

"This  way,  Miss  Pollard."  .  .  Take  her  to 
a  cab  and  send  her  home.  If  she'd  ever  get 
started.  What  satisfaction  did  women  find  in 
kissing  and  hugging  each  other?  "Thank  God, 
Pauline.  Oh,  I'm  so  glad."  .  .  .  Girl  friends. 
Well,  she'd  be  back  among  them  in  a  few  days, 
and  in  a  month  or  so  the  thing  would  be  over. 

At  last!  Hazlitt  blinked.  The  whirl  of  snow 
and  crowds  emptying  out  of  buildings  gave  him  a 
sense  for  an  instant  of  having  stepped  into  a 
strange  world.  The  sharp  cold  restored  his  wan- 
dering energies  and  a  realization  of  his  victory  in 
the  court-room  brought  him  a  belated  glow.  He 
was  young,  on  an  upgrade,  able  to  command 
success. 

Hazlitt  felt  a  sudden  lusty  kinship  toward  the 


Dream  99 

swarm  of  bodies  unwinding  itself  through  the 
snowfall.  A  contact  with  other  ...  a  pleasant, 
comforting  contact.  What  more  was  life,  any- 
way? A  warmth  in  the  heart  that  came  from  the 
knowledge  of  work  well  and  honestly  done.  Look 
the  world  squarely  in  the  eyes  and  say,  "You 
have  no  secrets  and  I  have  no  secrets.  We're 
friends." 

"Shall  we  go  to  your  office,  Mr.  Hazlitt?" 

Why  there?  Hazlitt  smiled  at  the  young 
woman.  She  was  free.  He  patted  the  gloved 
hand  on  his  arm  and  was  surprised  to  see  her 
eyes  grow  alive  with  tears. 

"I  would  like  to  talk  to  you — now  that  it's  over. 
I  feel  lost.  Really."  She  returned  his  smile  as 
one  determined  to  be  brave,  though  lost. 

The  snow  hid  the  buildings  and  left  their  window 
lights  drifting.  Faces  passing  smiled  as  if  saying, 
'  *  Hello,  we're  all  together  in  the  same  snow  with  no 
secrets  from  each  other.  ...  All  friends."  .  .  . 
Hazlitt  walked  with  the  girl  through  the  streets. 
The  traffic  and  the  crowds  were  intimate  friends 
and  he  spoke  to  them  by  patting  Pauline's  hand. 
An  all 's-well-with- the- world  pat. 

"Eighth  floor,  please.   ..." 

The  elevator  jiggled  to  a  stop  and  they  stepped 
into  the  corridor.  Scrawny-faced  women  were 
crawling  patiently  down  the  floor.  They  slopped 
wet  brushes  before  them,  wrung  mops  out  over 
pails,  and  crawled  an  inch  farther  down  the  floor. 
Hazlitt  smiled.  This,  too,  was  a  part  of  life — • 


ioo  Erik  Dorn 

keeping  the  floors  of  the  building  scrubbed.  He 
won  law  cases.  Old  women  scrubbed  floors.  It 
fitted  into  an  orderly  pattern  with  a  great  meaning 
to  its  order.  He  paused  for  a  moment  to  admire 
the  cleanliness  of  the  washed  surface.  Homage 
to  the  work  of  others — of  old  women  on  their  knees 
scrubbing  floors. 

''Well,  it's  all  over,  Miss  Pollard." 

She  was  sitting  beside  the  desk  where  she  had 
sat  the  first  time  they  had  discussed  her  defense. 
Hazlitt,  unloading  his  brief-case,  looked  at  her. 
Uncommonly  pretty.  Trusting  eyes.  What  a 
rotten  fellow,  the  interne ! 

"I  don't  know  why  I  wanted  to  come  here." 
Pauline's  eyes  stared  sadly  about  the  room.  "I'm 
free,  but  .  .  . "  She  covered  her  face  and  wept. 

"Now,  now,  Miss  Pollard!" 

"Oh,  it's  still  awful." 

"You'll  forget  soon." 

"I'll  go  away.  Somewhere.  Alone."  A 
louder  sob. 

"Please  don't  cry." 

Hazlitt  watched  her  tenderly.  The  weeping 
increased.  A  lonesomeness  and  a  vagueness  were 
in  the  girl's  heart.  The  tick-tock  of  the  city  had  a 
foreign  sound.  She  was  a  stranger  in  its  streets. 
There  had  been  something  else,  and  now  it  was 
gone.  A  wilderness,  a  tension,  the  familiar  face 
of  Frankie  Hamel  telling  her  to  go  to  hell  one  night 
and  stop  bothering  him  with  her  damned  wailing 
.  .  .  and  Frankie  dying  at  her  feet  whispering, 


Dream  101 

"What  the  devil,  Pauline?"  Then  the  trial. 
Hot  and  cold  hours.  A  roomful  of  silent,  open- 
mouthed  faces  listening  to  her  weep,  watching  her 
squirm  with  proper  shame  and  anguish  as  she  told 
her  story  to  the  jurors  .  .  .  the  details  of  the 
abortion.  "And  then  I  couldn't  stand  it.  I 
don't  remember  what  happened.  Oh,  I  loved 
him!  I  don't  remember.  He  cursed  me.  He 
called  me  a  .  .  .  Oh,  God,  names.  Awful  names ! 
I  told  him  I  was  going  to  kill  myself.  I  couldn't 
live,  disgraced  .  .  .  without  his  love.  I'd 
bought  a  gun  to  kill  myself.  And  he  laughed. 
I  don't  remember  after  that;  except  that  somehow 
he  was  .  .  .  he  was  dead.  And  I  wasn't  .  .  . " 

These  things  were  gone.  The  trial  was  over  and 
done.  Now  there  was  nothing  left  but  the  city 
with  its  street-cars  and  offices. 

"Oh,  everything's  so  changed,"  she  murmured. 
Hazlitt  stood  behind  her  chair,  hand  on  her 
shoulder.  Poor  child!  The  law  could  not  free 
her  from  the  remorse  for  her  crime  and  mistake. 
Lawlessness  carried  its  own  punishment.  Virtue 
its  own  rewards,  sin  its  own  torments. 

"You'll  forget,"  he  answered  softly.  The  law 
sometimes  punished.  But  after  all  this  was  the 
real  punishment  .  .  .  beyond  the  power  of  the 
law  to  mete  out.  Punishment  of  sin.  Conscience. 
Poor  child!  Inexorable  fruit  of  evil.  Despair, 
remorse.  .  .  . 

"You  must  forget.  You're  young.  You  can 
begin  over.  Please  don't  cry." 


102  Erik  Dorn 

Thus  Hazlitt  comforted  her  who  was  weeping 
not  with  remorse  for  what  had  been,  but  that  it 
had  gone.  No  word  consciousness  stirred  her  grief. 
An  unintelligible  sorrow,  it  swelled  in  her  heart 
and  filled  her  with  helplessness.  Life  had  gone 
from  her.  She  was  mourning  for  it.  Mourning 
for  a  murderess  and  a  sinner  who  had  gone,  aban- 
doned her  and  left  her  a  naked,  uninteresting 
Pauline  Pollard  again — a  nobody  surrounded  by 
nobodies.  And  once  it  had  been  different.  Lighted 
faces  listening  to  her  in  a  room.  Frankie  whisper- 
ing, "What  the  devil,  Pauline?" 

A  fresh  burst  of  tears  brought  Hazlitt  in  front 
of  her.  Gently  he  moved  her  hands  from  her  face. 

"You  mustn't,"  he  began  over  again. 

"Oh,  I  won't  ever  be  able  to  .    . 

"Yes  you  will,  little  girl." 

"No,  no!" 

She  was  standing.  Snow  outside.  Rows  of 
lighted  windows  drifting.  Thoughts  slipped  out 
of  his  head.  Traffic  probably  tied  up. 

"Please  don't  cry." 

She  dropped  her  head  against  his  shoulder  and 
wept  anew.  It  was  nice  to  have  somebody  asking 
her  not  to  cry.  It  made  it  easier  and  more 
purposeful  to  weep. 

Hazlitt  sighed.  Tears  .  .  .  tears  .  .  .  the 
live  odor  of  hair.  Arms  that  felt  soft.  She  was 
mumbling  close  to  him,  "I  can't  help  it.  Please 
forgive  me." 

1 '  Yes,  yes !    There,  there ! "     Of  course  he  would 


Dream  103 

forgive  her.  Forgiveness  made  him  glow.  But 
as  he  spoke  his  voice  depressed  him.  What 
should  he  do?  Could  he  help  her?  What  was 
life,  anyway?  Snow  outside  and  rows  of  lighted 
windows  drifting.  Her  body  close,  warm,  and 
saddening.  The  firmness  of  his  nerves  dissolved. 
He  had  his  sorrow  too  .  .  .  Rachel.  Far  away. 
Drifting  like  the  snow  outside.  Rachel  .  .  . 
the  odor  of  hair  brought  her  back.  Should  he 
cry  ?  Her  knees  had  touched  him  once  liks  this. 
She  had  held  her  arm  about  his  shoulder  once, 
like  this.  But,  oh,  so  different!  .  .  .  The  girl 
seemed  to  come  closer  to  him. 

He  had  been  holding  a  stranger  politely.  Now 
the  stranger  relaxed.  Soft,  warm,  familiar  body. 
He  grew  frightened.  Somehow  the  clinging  of 
the  girl's  body,  the  murmur  of  her  tears,  brought 
a  sorrow  into  his  heart.  I  am  not  Rachel,  but 
I  am  like  her.  .  .  .  What  made  him  think  that  ? 
Yes,  she  was  like  her,  warm,  soft,  and  woman. 
Like  her — like  her.  Why  had  they  kissed  ?  And 
her  hands  clasping  nervously  at  his  shoulders? 
She  was  not  in  love?  Not  Rachel.  But  she 
wanted  something.  And  he  too.  Something  that 
was  a  dream  song.  Here  were  the  lips  of  the 
singer,  eager,  reaching  to  his  own.  Pressing, 
asking  more.  How  had  this  happened?  Should 
he  speak  ?  But  what  ?  Nothing  to  say.  Had  he 
forgotten  Rachel?  Remembering  Rachel?  Who 
was  this?  The  questions  blurred.  Rachel,  sang 
his  heart.  For  a  moment  he  embraced  the  warm 


104  Erik  Dorn 

shadow  of  a  dream.  And  then  a  woman  was 
offering  herself  to  him.  No  dream  now.  Her 
thighs  riveted  themselves  against  him.  Under 
her  clothes  her  body  seemed  to  be  moving,  coming 
to  him. 

Hazlitt  grew  dizzy.  He  had  been  consoling 
her.  No  more.  Now  what?  He  threw  his 
strength  into  his  embrace.  Their  bodies  moved 
together. 

"Oh  ..."  A  moan  as  if  she  were  still  weep- 
ing. Her  lips  parted  in  desperate  surrender.  Her 
kiss  took  the  breath  out  of  him. 

"Dearest!"  His  voice  carried  him  out  of  her 
arms.  He  knew  suddenly  that  but  for  the  word 
and  the  familiar  sound  of  his  voice  he  would  have 
possessed  her.  But  the  word  rang  an  alarm  in 
his  ears.  Fright,  nausea,  relaxed  muscles.  A 
wiliness  in  his  thought.  .  .  .  "Do  you  feel 
better  now?" 

She  failed  to  hear.     Her  fingers  still  clutched. 

"There  .  .  .  there,  don't  cry !"  He  felt  cold. 
His  hands  on  her  arms  pressed  them  gently  away, 
his  fingers  patting  them  with  a  fatherly  diapason. 
George  Hazlitt,  attorney-at-law. 

"Better  now,  Pauline?"  An  error  to  have 
called  her  Pauline.  Look  bad  in  the  record. 
Committed  him  to  "Pauline." 

"Oh,  George!" 

The  thought  of  Rachel  listened  in  amazement 
.  .  .  George  .  .  .  Pauline.  Dearest!  He 
must  be  careful.  She  had  grown  numb  against 


Dream  105 

him.  A  numb  woman  sewed  to  his  lapels.  He 
lowered  her  as  if  she  were  lifeless  and  he  fearful 
of  disturbing  her.  She  looked  harmless  in  a  chair. 
Was  it  possible  to  talk  now?  Not  yet.  Take  her 
hand;  careful  not  to  squeeze  it.  Pat  it  as  he'd 
done  in  the  street.  An  all's- well- with-the- world 
patr 

Somebody  rattled  the  doorknob.  Hazlitt 
started  eagerly.  Relief.  But,  good  God,  no 
lights  in  the  office.  The  cleaners  would  come  in 
and  think  things.  Her  hair  in  disorder  and  her 
face  smeared  with  weeping  would  make  them 
think  things.  An  oath  disentangled  itself  from 
his  confusion.  The  door  opened.  Two  scrawny- 
faced  women  with  mops  and  brooms.  . 

"It's  all  right.  Go  ahead.  We're  just  leaving. 
Are  you  ready,  Miss  Pollard?" 

The  Miss  Pollard  was  a  masterpiece.  But  did  it 
deceive  the  mops  and  brooms?  Damn  them! 
They  walked  arm  in  arm  down  the  corridor. 

' '  I  think  the  elevators  have  stopped.  Wouldn't 
it  be  a  joke  if  we  had  to  walk  down? " 

She  refused  to  answer.  Witness  remains  silent. 
Why  couldn't  she  be  interested  in  jokes?  .  .  . 
the  woman  of  it.  Nothing  had  happened.  She 
had  nothing  to  think  about.  Why  not  jokes? 
He  frowned  at  the  grilling  of  the  elevator  door. 
An  elevator  bobbed  up. 

In  the  street,  "I'll  get  a  cab,  Miss  Pollard." 
Take  a  firm  stand  and  not  call  her  Pauline  again. 
But  she  was  silent.  Nothing  had  happened.  He 


io6  Erik  Dorn 

grew  frightened.  She  was  trying  to  bulldoze  him 
by  pretending.  Bundle  her  into  a  cab  and  get  rid 
of  her. 

Suddenly,  as  if  he  d  been  thinking  it  out  when 
he  hadn't,  "You  must  forgive  me  for — that.  I 
didn't  mean  to,  please." 

Anything  rather  than  her  silence.  Even  an 
apology.  Nothing  had  happened,  but  he  would 
apologize  anyway  to  be  on  the  safe  side.  She 
looked  at  him  and  said,  "Oh!" 

"Please,  Miss  Pollard,  you  make  me  feel  like  a 
cur." 

A  chauffeur  leaned  forward  from  his  seat  and 
thrust  open  the  cab  door.  Pauline  entered  with- 
out hesitation.  She  might  have  the  decency  to 
hesitate  when  he  was  apologizing  for  nothing. 
Hazlitt  stuck  his  head  in  after  her.  The  thing 
was  ludicrously  unfinished  and  he  was  making  an 
ass  of  himself.  She  should  have  hesitated. 

"Tell  your  mother  I  hope  she'll  be  better  soon." 

"Whereto,  mister?" 

He  gave  an  address  and  added,  "Just  a  minute, 
please," 

Hazlitt  reentered  the  cab  with  his  head.  The 
thing  was  still  unfinished.  Wishing  good  health 
to  her  mother  made  it  worse — as  if  he  were  trying 
to  cover  up  something.  He  must  be  frank.  Drag 
everything  into  the  open  and  show  he  wasn't 
afraid.  But  she  was  weeping  again.  He  paused 
in  consternation.  Her  hand  reached  toward  him. 
A  voice,  vibrant  and  soft  with  tears,  whispered 


Dream  107 

in  the  gloom  of  the  cab.  A  love  voice.  "Good- 
by,  George!" 

He  watched  the  tail  light  dart  through  the 
traffic  and  then  began  his  defense.  Gentleman  of 
the  jury  .  .  .  jury  ...  he  had  done  nothing. 
It  was  she  who  had  suggested  the  office.  A  low, 
vulgar  ruse  to  trap  him.  The  evidence  was  plain 
on  that  point.  Overruled.  But  he  had  at- 
tempted only  to  console  her.  Irrelevant  and  im- 
material to  the  facts  at  issue  in  the  case.  But  she 
had  flung  her  arms  around  him.  Not  he !  Never 
he!  The  woman  was  mad.  Yes,  a  mad  woman. 
Dangerous.  She  had  done  the  same  to  the  interne. 
Overruled.  Overruled.  What?  Frank  Hamel, 
gentleman  of  the  jury,  glutting  his  beastly  hungers 
on  the  finest  fruit  of  life — the  innocence  and  sacri- 
fice of  a  maiden's  first  love.  No,  not  Hamel. 
Hazlitt.  Are  such  creatures  men  or  fiends?  What 
was  he  thinking  about  Oh,  yes,  the  interne. 
Dead,  buried  .  .  .  we,  the  jury,  find  the  defendant 
not  guilty.  .  .  .  But  the  dead  interne  was 
saying  something. 

For  moments  George  Hazlitt  looked  out  upon  a 
new  world — a  miserable  world — vast,  blurred, 
upside  down.  People  were  moving  in  it.  Dead 
internes.  They  passed  with  faces  intent  upon 
their  own  solitudes.  Buildings  were  in  it.  They 
burst  a  skyrocket  of  windows  into  the  night.  There 
was  snow.  It  fell  twisting  itself  out  of  the  dark- 
ness. Familiar  faces,  buildings,  snow.  Theater 
facades  making  a  jangle  of  light  through  the  storm. 


io8  Erik  Dorn 

Entrances,  exits,  cars  clanging,  figures  hurrying, 
signs  sputtering  confusion  in  the  snow.  All  fami- 
liar, all  a  part  of  the  great  tick-tock  of  the  city. 

Hazlitt  stopped  and  stared  at  the  familiar  night 
of  the  streets.  A  gleam  and  a  flurry  were  sweep- 
ing his  eyes.  Snow.  But  faces  and  buildings 
and  lights  were  a  part  of  it.  They  swarmed  and 
danced  about  him,  sending  a  shout  to  his  heart. 
"We're  upside  down  .  .  .  we're  upside  down 
.  .  .  heels  in  air.  .  .  .  She  made  love  to  the 
interne  as  she  did  to  you  .  .  .  and  the  fiend  is 
dead.  Lies  .  .  .  lies  .  .  .  but  who  gives  a 
damn?" 

The  horn  of  a  motor  screeched.  A  woman  and  a 
man  pattered  by  on  a  run,  leaving  a  trail  of  laugh- 
ter. From  afar  came  the  sound  o^  voices — of 
street  evangels  singing  hymns  on  a  corner.  The 
soul  of  George  Hazlitt  grew  sick.  Night  hands 
fastened  themselves  about  his  throat.  Upside 
down  .  .  .  heels  in  air.  The  things  he  had  said 
to  the  jury  were  lies.  Lies  and  disorder.  Right 
and  wrong.  God  in  heaven,  what  were  they,  if 
not  right  and  wrong? 

The  thing  came  to  Hazlitt  without  words,  with 
a  gleam  and  a  flurry  as  of  snow.  He  stood  blind 
— a  little  snow-covered  figure  shivering  and  lost  in 
a  lighted,  crowded  street.  All  because  a  woman, 
warm  and  clinging,  had  kissed  him  on  the  mouth 
and  moved  her  body.  But  once  she  had  kissed 
another  man  thus — on  the  mouth,  with  her  body 
moving,  and  therein  lay  a  new  world — a  world  of 


Dream  109 

flying-haired  Maenads  and  growling  satyrs  that 
lived  behind  the  tick-tock  of  windows.  Standing 
in  the  snowstorm  an  insane  notion  took  possession 
of  Hazlitt.  It  had  to  do  with  Evil.  Order  was 
an  accident.  Men  and  women  were  evil.  The 
tick-tock  was  a  pretense. 

The  notion  passed.  Doubt  needs  thought  to 
feed  upon,  and  Hazlitt  gave  it  none.  Or  he  would 
have  ended  as  Hazlitt  and  become  someone  else. 
He  walked  again  with  a  silence  in  his  head.  An- 
other block,  and  life  had  again  focused  itself  into 
tableaux.  The  moment  of  doubt  had  shaken  him 
as  if  rough  hands  had  reached  from  an  alley  and 
clutched  wildly  at  his  throat.  But  it  had  gone, 
and  the  memory  of  it  too  was  gone.  Hands  that 
had  nobody  behind  them ;  emotion  that  came  with- 
out the  stabilizing  outline  of  words.  So  the  world 
stood  again  on  its  feet.  Tick-tock,  said  the  world 
to  George  Hazlitt ;  and  his  brain  gave  an  answer, 
"Tick-tock!" 

For  the  paradox  of  Hazlitt  was  not  that  he  was 
a  thinker,  but  a  dreamer.  His  puritanism  had  put 
an  end  to  his  brain.  Like  his  fellows  for  whose 
respect  and  admiration  he  worked,  he  had  bartered 
his  intelligence  for  a  thing  he  proudly  called  Amer- 
icanism, and  thought  for  him  had  become  a  placid 
agitation  of  platitudes.  But  he  could  still  dream. 
His  emotions  avenged  his  stupidity.  Walking  in 
the  street — he  felt  a  desire  to  walk— he  shut  him- 
self in.  It  seemed  to  him  now  that  his  love  had 
become  a  part  of  the  snow  and  the  far-away  dark 


i  io  Erik  Dorn 

of  the  sky.  Rachel  .  .  .  Rachel,  his  thought 
called  as  if  summoning  something  back. 

It  came  to  him  slowly — the  image  of  the  virginal 
one — doubly  sweet  and  beautiful  now  that  he  was 
unclean.  How  had  it  happened?  She  had  been 
weeping;  he  comforting  her.  Two  strangers,  they 
had  sat  in  his  office.  One  a  murderess  weeping 
for  her  sins;  the  other  a  kindly  hearted,  clean- 
minded  attorney  consoling  her,  pointing  to  her  the 
way  of  hope.  And  then  like  two  animals  they  had 
stood  sucking  at  each  other's  breath.  God,  what 
could  he  do?  Nothing.  He  was  unclean.  He 
recalled  with  a  dread  the  thought  that  had  come 
to  him  in  the  embrace  .  .  .  was  she  Rachel? 
Yes,  she  had  been  Rachel  and  he  had  lowered  his 
dream  to  her  lips,  as  if  in  the  lust  of  a  strange 
woman's  kiss  there  lay  the  image  of  Rachel,  the 
virginal  mystery  of  Rachel.  If  he  had  been  man 
enough  not  to  drag  the  memory  of  Rachel  into  it, 
it  would  be  easy  now.  But  he  would  look  squarely 
at  the  facts,  anyway.  That  must  be  his  punish- 
ment and  his  penance.  Yes,  say  it  ...  it  was 
with  his  love  for  Rachel  he  had  embraced  and 
almost  possessed  the  body  of  a  stranger. 

Hazlitt  quickened  his  walking.  He  was  con- 
fronted with  the  intricate  business  of  forgiving 
himself.  He  felt  shame,  but  shame  was  some- 
thing that  could  be  walked  off.  Faster  .  .  . 
with  an  amorous  mumble  soothing  him  and  the 
hurt.  After  all,  was  it  so  important  ?  Yes  .  .  . 
no.  Forgive  himself,  but  not  too  quickly.  He 


Dream  m 

walked.  .  .  .  Words  made  circles  in  his  head 
— abject  and  sorrowful  circles  about  the  dream  of 
the  virginal  one. 

A  man  with  a  curious  smile  stopped  in  front  of 
him  to  light  a  pipe.  Hazlitt  paused  and  looked  at 
the  street.  He  would  take  a  car.  His  legs  were 
tired.  The  wind  and  snow  put  out  the  match  of 
the  man  wh»  was  lighting  a  pipe.  Hazlitt  looked 
at  him.  What  was  he  smiling  about?  We're  all 
in  the  snow  *  ,  «"  all  without  secrets  in  the  snow. 
Hail  fellows  of  the  street  .  .  .  Curious,  he 
should  feel  sad  for  a  man  who  was  smiling  on  a 
street  corner.  Tiredness.  The  man  was  cursing 
the  snow  good-humoredly.  Suddenly  the  pipe 
was  lighted  and  the  man  seemed  to  have  forgotten 
it.  His  eyes  gleamed  for  an  instant  across  Hazlitt 's 
face,  and  with  an  abrupt  nod  of  recognition  the 
man  passed  on.  Walking  swiftly,  bent  forward, 
vanishing  behind  a  flurry  of  snow. 

Hazlitt  peered  down  the  track  for  his  car.  He 
wondered  how  the  man  knew  him.  It  pleased  his 
vanity  t©  be  recognized  by  people  he  couldn't 
place.  It  showed  he  was  somebody.  Yes,  George 
Hazlitt,  attorney-at-law.  He  recalled  .  .  .  they 
had  met  once  in  an  office.  A  newspaperman — 
editor  or  something.  Probably  looking  for  news. 
Hazlitt  was  glad  he  had  been  recognized.  The 
man  would  think  of  him  as  he  walked  on  in  the 
snow — of  his  victory  in  the  court-room  and  his 
future.  That  was  part  of  life,  to  be  thought  of  and 
envied  by  others. 


ii2  Erik  Dorn 

Beside  him  a  newsboy  raised  a  shout  .  .  . 
"Extra!  Pauline  Pollard  acquitted!  .  .  ." 
People  would  read  about  it  in  their  homes.  His 
name.  Wonder  who  he  was.  A  voice  across  the 
street  answered,  " Extra!  Germans  bombard 
Paris!  .  .  ."  The  damned  Huns!  Why  didn't 
America  put  an  end  to  their  dirty  business  by 
rushing  in  ? 

He  stepped  into  the  warm  street-car  and  sat 
staring  moodily  out  of  the  window.  He  was  a 
part  of  life,  but  there  was  something  beyond — a 
— mystery.  " Extra!  .  .<>>."  He  should  have 
bought  a  paper.  There  was  the  newspaper  fel- 
low again,  still  walking  swiftly,  bent  forward, 
staring  into  the  snow.  .  .  .  Oh,  yes,  Erik 
Dorn.  He  had  met  him  once.  .  .  .  The  car 
passed  on. 


CHAPTER  IV 

ERIK  DORN  laughed  as  he  walked  swiftly 
through  the  snow  in  the  street.  It  seemed  to 
him  he  had  been  laughing  incessantly  for  a  week, 
and  that  he  would  continue  to  laugh  forever.  His 
thought  played  delightedly  with  his  emotions  .  .  . 
a  precocious  child  with  new  fantastic  toys.  He 
was  in  love.  A  laughable  business ! 

Five  months  of  uncertainty  had  preceded  the 
laugh.  An  irritated,  inexplicable  moodiness  as  if 
the  shadow  of  a  disease  had  come  into  his  blood. 
On  top  of  this  moodiness  a  violence  of  temper,  a 
stewing,  cursing,  fuming  about.  A  five  months' 
quarrel  with  his  wife.  .  .  . 

His  love-making  had  been  somewhat  curious. 
Walks  with  Rachel — a  whirligig  of  streets,  faces, 
words.  A  dance  and  a  flash  of  words,  as  if  he 
were  exploding  into  phrases.  As  if  his  vocabulary 
desired  to  empty  itself  before  Rachel.  His  garrul- 
ity amazed  him.  Everything  had  to  be  talked 
about.  There  was  a  desperate  need  for  talk.  And 
when  there  was  nothing  to  talk  about  for  the  mo- 
ment, his  words  abhorring  idleness,  fell  to  inventing 
emotions — a  complete  set  of  emotions  for  himself 
and  for  Rachel.  These  were  discussed,  explained, 
and  forgotten. 

s  113 


ii4  Erik  Dorn 

Finally  the  strange  talk  that  had  ended  a  week 
ago — a  last  desperate  concealment  of  emotion  and 
desire  in  a  burst  of  glittering  phrases.  Phrases 
that  whirled  like  the  exotic  decorations  about  the 
wild  body  of  a  dancer,  becoming  a  dance  in  them- 
selves, deriving  a  movement  and  a  meaning  beyond 
themselves.  Then  the  end  of  concealment.  An 
exhausted  vocabulary  sighed,  collapsed.  A  fran- 
tic discarding  of  ornaments  and  the  nude  body  of 
the  dancer  stood  posturing  naively,  timidly.  There- 
with an  end  to  mystery.  The  thing  was  known. 

It  had  happened  during  one  of  their  walks. 
Leaden  clouds  over  day-dark  pavements.  Ware- 
houses, railroad  tracks,  factories — a  street  toiling 
through  a  dismantled  world.  Their  hands  to- 
gether, they  paused  and  remained  staring  as  if  at 
a  third  person.  He  had  reached  out  rather  im- 
personally and  taken  her  hand.  The  contact  had 
shocked  him  into  silence.  It  was  difficult  to 
breathe. 

"Rachel,  do  you  love  me?" 

She  nodded  her  head  and  pressed  his  hand 
against  her  cheek.  They  walked  on  in  silence. 
This  brought  an  end  to  talk.  Talk  concealed. 
There  was  nothing  more  to  conceal.  His  vocabu- 
lary sighed  as  if  admitting  defeat  and  uselessness. 
At  a  corner  grown  noisy  with  wagons  and  trucks 
Rachel  stopped.  Her  eyes  opened  to  him.  He 
looked  at  her  and  said,  as  if  he  had  fallen  asleep 
"I  too  am  in  love."  He  laughed  dreamily. 
"Yes,  I've  been  since  the  beginning.  Curious!" 


Dream  115 

She  might  laugh  at  him.  It  was  evident  he  had 
avoided  making  love  to  her  during  the  five  months 
in  fear  of  that.  The  only  reason  he  hadn't  em- 
braced, kissed,  and  protested  affection  five  months 
ago  was  the  possibility  that  she  would  laugh — and 
perhaps  go  away. 

Even  now,  despite  the  absence  of  laughter,  a 
part  of  the  fear  he  had  still  lingered.  He  was  no 
longer  Erik  Dorn,  man  of  words  and  mirror  of 
nothings.  He  had  said  he  loved  her.  Avoiding, 
of  course,  the  direct  remark.  But  he  had  indi- 
cated it  rather  definitely.  It  would  undoubtedly 
lessen  him  to  her,  make  him  human.  She  had 
admired  him  because  he  was  different.  Now  he 
was  like  everybody  else  saying  an  ' '  I  love  you ' '  to 
a  woman.  Perhaps  he  should  unsay  it.  Again,  a 
dreamy  laugh.  But  it  made  him  happy.  A 
drifting,  childish  happiness.  He  looked  at  her. 
Her  eyes  struck  him  as  marvelously  large  and 
bright.  Yet  in  a  curious  way  he  seemed  unaware 
of  her.  No  excitement  came  to  him.  Decidedly 
there  was  something  unsensual  about  his  love — 
if  it  was  love.  It  might  be  something  else.  It  is 
difficult  for  an  extremely  married  man  to  distin- 
guish offhand.  He  desired  nothing  more  than  to 
stand  still  and  close  his  eyes  and  permit  himself  to 
shine.  Vague  words  traced  his  emotions.  A  full- 
ness. A  completion.  An  end  of  nothing.  Thrills 
in  his  fingers.  Remarkable  disturbance  of  the 
diaphragm.  To  be  likened  to  the  languorous  effects 
of  some  almost  stimulating  drug. 


n6  Erik  Dorn 

In  a  great  calm  he  slowly  forgot  himself,  his 
words,  and  Rachel.  Standing  thus  he  heard  her 
murmur  something  and  felt  his  hand  once  more 
against  her  cheek.  A  pretty  gesture.  Then  she  was 
walking  down  the  dark  street,  running  from  him. 
She  had  said  good-bye.  He  awoke  and  cursed. 
A  bewildering  sensation  of  being  still  at  her  side 
as  if  he  had  gone  out  of  himself  and  were  following 
her.  He  remained  thus  watching  the  figure  of 
Rachel  until  it  disappeared  and  the  street  grew  sud- 
denly cold  and  empty.  A  strange  scene  mocked 
him.  Strange  smoke,  strange  warehouses,  strange 
railroad  tracks.  Cupid  awaking  in  a  cinder 
patch. 

He  walked  on,  still  bewildered.  Nothing  had 
happened  to  him.  Instead,  something  had  hap- 
pened to  the  streets.  The  city  had  suffered  an 
amputation.  There  was  something  incomplete 
about  its  streets  and  crowds.  His  eye  felt  annoyed 
by  it.  He  was  not  thinking  of  Rachel.  He  felt 
as  if  she  had  suddenly  ceased  to  exist  and  left  be- 
hind her  an  unexistence.  It  was  this  emptiness 
outside  that  for  the  moment  annoyed  and  then 
frightened  him.  An  emptiness  that  had  something 
to  give  him  now.  His  senses  reached  eagerly 
toward  the  figures  of  people  and  buildings  and 
received  nothing. .  What  did  he  want  of  them  ? 
They  were  a  pattern,  intricate  and  precise,  with 
nothing  to  give.  Yet  he  wanted.  Good  God, 
he  wanted  something  out  of  the  streets  of  the  city. 
Then  he  remembered,  as  if  recalling  some  algebraic 


Dream  117 

formula,  "I'm  in  love."  His  laughter  had  started 
at  that  moment. 

At  home  it  continued  in  him.  Anna  had  gone 
to  visit  relatives  in  Wisconsin.  He  spent  an  hour 
writing  her  a  long  amorous  letter.  He  was  in 
love  with  Rachel,  but  a  new  notion  had  planted 
itself  in  him.  Whatever  happened,  Anna  must 
not  be  made  unhappy.  Love  was  not  a  reality. 
Anna  and  her  happiness  were  the  realities  that 
must  be  carefully  considered.  This  thing  that 
had  popped  into  life  in  the  cinder  patch  was  a 
mood — comparable  to  the  mood  of  a  thirsty  man 
taking  his  first  sip  of  water. 

"...  the  memory  of  you  comes  before  me/' 
he  scribbled  to  his  wife,  "and  I  feel  sad.  I  am 
incomplete  without  you.  Dear  one,  I  love  you. 
The  streets  seem  empty  and  the  hours  drag.  .  .  ." 

In  writing  to  his  wife  he  seemed  to  recover  a 
sense  of  virtue.  He  smiled  as  he  sealed  the  en- 
velope. ' '  It  must  be  an  old  instinct,"  he  thought. 
' '  People  are  kindest  to  those  they  deceive.  Thus 
good  and  evil  balance." 

His  father,  sitting  before  a  grate  fire,  desired  to 
talk.  He  would  talk  to  him  in  circles  that  would 
irritate  the  old  man  and  make  his  eyes  water  more. 

"People  don't  live,"  he  began.  "To  live  is  to 
have  a  dream  behind  the  hours.  To  have  the 
world  offering  something." 

"Yes,  my  son.     Something  .    .    ." 

"Then  the  people  outside  one  take  on  meaning- 
ful outlines.  There  comes  a  contact.  One  is  a 


ii8  Erik  Dorn 

part  of  something — of  a  force  that  moves  the  stars, 
eh?" 

The  old  man  nodded,  and  mumbled  in  his  beard. 
Dorn  felt  a  warmth  toward  his  father.  His 
stupidity  delighted  him.  He  would  be  able  hence- 
forth to  talk  to  the  old  man  and  say,  "I  love 
Rachel,"  and  the  old  man  would  think  he  was 
coining  phrases  for  a  profitless  amusement.  It 
would  be  the  same  with  Anna.  He  would  be  able 
to  make  love  to  Anna  differently  hereafter.  A 
rather  cynical  idea.  He  laughed  and  beamed  at 
Isaac  Dorn.  Did  it  matter  much  whom  one 
kissed  as  long  as  one  had  a  desire  for  kissing?  In 
fact,  his  desire  for  Rachel  seemed  at  an  end,  now 
that  he  had  mentioned  it  to  her.  A  handclasp,  a 
silence  trembling  with  emotion,  a  sudden  light  in 
the  heart — properly  speaking,  this  was  all  there 
was  to  love.  The  rest  was  undoubtedly  a  make- 
believe.  As  he  walked  out  to  post  the  letter  he 
tried  to  recall  the  emotions  or  ideas  that  had  in- 
spired him  to  marry  Anna.  There  had  un- 
doubtedly been  something  of  the  sort  then.  But 
it  had  left  no  memory.  Their  honeymoon ,  of  which 
she  was  always  speaking,  even  after  seven  years, 
with  a  mist  in  her  eyes — good  Lord,  had  there 
been  a  honeymoon  ? 

He  spent  the  next  afternoon  with  Raohel.  A 
silence  of  familiarity  had  fallen  upon  them.  There 
was  a  totality  in  silence.  Walking  through  the 
streets  beside  her,  Dorn  mused,  "Undoubtedly 
the  thing  is  over.  It  begins  even  to  bore  a  bit." 


Dream  119 

He  noted  curiously  that  he  was  unconscious  of 
the  streets.  No  tracing  their  pictures  with 
phrases.  They  were  streets,  and  that  was  an  end 
of  it.  They  belonged  where  they  were. 

His  eyes  dropped  to  his  companion.  A  face 
with  moonlight  grown  upon  it.  Beautiful,  yes. 
Sometime  he  would  tell  her.  Pour  it  out  in 
words.  There  was  a  paradox  about  the  situation. 
He  was  obviously  somewhat  bored.  Yet  to  leave 
her,  to  put  an  end  to  their  strolling  through  the 
strange  moments,  would  hurt.  Had  he  ever  lived 
before?  Banal  question.  "No,  I've  never  lived 
before.  Living  is  somewhat  of  a  bore,  a  beautiful 
bore." 

When  they  parted  she  stood  looking  at  him  as 
one  transfixed. 

"Erik!" 

She  made  his  name  mean  something — a  world, 
a  heaven.  For  an  instant  his  laughter  ended  and 
a  sadness  engulfed  him.  Then  once  more  he  was 
alone  and  laughing.  Rachel  was  walking  away, 
something  rather  ridiculously  normal  about  her 
step.  Yes,  he  would  laugh  forever.  Lord,  what 
a  jest !  Like  water  coming  out  of  a  stone.  Laugh 
at  the  crowds  and  buildings  that  desired  to  annoy 
him  by  sweeping  toward  him  the  memory  of 
Rachel  saying  "Erik!"  He  diverted  himself,  as 
he  hurried  to  his  home,  by  staring  into  people's 
eyes  and  saying,  "This  one  has  a  dream.  That 
one  hasn't.  This  one  loves.  The  streets  hurt 
him.  That  one  is  dead.  The  streets  bury  him." 


120  Erik  Dorn 

On  the  third  day  the  bombardment  of  Paris  in- 
terfered with  his  plans.  He  remained  too  late  in 
the  office  to  walk  with  Rachel.  As  he  sauntered 
about  the  shop,  assisting  and  directing  at  the 
extras  and  replates,  he  vaguely  forgot  her.  Word 
had  come  from  the  chief  to  hold  the  paper  open 
until  nine  o'clock.  If  Paris  failed  to  fall  by  nine 
everybody  could  go  home  and  spend  the  rest  of 
the  night  wrangling  with  his  wife  or  looking  at  a 
movie.  If  it  fell  by  nine  there  would  be  a  final 
extra. 

"I  hope  the  damned  town  falls  five  minutes 
after  nine,"  growled  Warren,  "if  it's  got  to  fall. 
Let  it  fall  for  the  morning  papers.  What  the 
hell  are  they  for,  anyway?  I've  got  a  rotten 
headache." 

Dorn  told  him  to  run  along.  "I'll  handle 
the  copy,  if  there  is  any.  A  history  of  Paris 
out  of  the  almanac  will  answer  the  purpose,  I 
guess." 

Warren  folded  his  newspapers  and  left.  Dorn 
sat  scribbling  possible  headlines  for  the  next  re- 
plate:  "Germans  Bombard  Paris  .  .  .  "  and  then 
a  bank  in  smaller  type:  "French  Capital  Silent. 
Communication  Cut  Off."  He  paused  and  added 
with  a  sudden  elation,  "Civilization  on  Its  Knees." 

The  hum  and  suspense  of  the  night-watch 
pleased  him.  He  liked  the  idea  of  sitting  in  a 
noisy  place  waiting  to  flash  the  news  of  the  fall  of 
Paris  to  the  city.  And  the  next  day  the  four 
afternoon  papers  would  carry  a  small  box  on  the 


Dream  121 

front  page  announcing  to  the  public  that,  as  usual, 
each  of  them  had  been  first  on  the  street  with  the 
important  announcement.  The  fall  of  Paris! 
His  thought  mused.  Babylon  Falls.  .  .  .  Civil- 
ization on  Its  Knees.  The  City  Wall  of  Jericho 
Collapses.  Carthage  Reduced  to  Ashes.  Rome 
Sacked  by  Huns.  Yes,  there  had  been  mag- 
nificent headlines  in  the  past.  Now  a  new  head- 
line— Paris.  There  would  be  a  sudden  flurry; 
boys  running  between  desks;  Crowley  trying  to 
shout  and  achieving  a  frightful  whisper;  a  smeared 
printer  announcing  some  ghastly  mistake  in  the 
composing  room;  and  Paris  would  be  down — 
fallen.  Nothing  left  to  do  except  grin  at  the  idea 
of  the  morning  papers  cursing  their  luck.  He 
sat,  vaguely  hoping  there  might  be  tidal  waves, 
earthquakes,  cataclysms.  On  this  night  his  en- 
ergies seemed  to  demand  more  work  than  the  mere 
fall  of  Paris  would  occasion.  "Might  as  well  do 
the  thing  up  brown  and  put  an  end  to  the  world — 
all  in  one  extra,"  he  smiled. 

A  messenger  boy  brought  a  telegram.  He 
opened  it  and  read, 

" I  am  going  away .     RACHEL." 

All  a  part  of  the  night's  work.  Killing  off  Paris. 
Answering  telegrams  to  vanishing  sweethearts. 
He  stuffed  the  message  into  his  pocket.  On 
second  thought  he  tore  it  up.  Anna  was  coming 
home  the  next  day.  "Wife  Finds  Tell-tale 
Telegram.  .  .  . "  Another  headline. 

"Wait  a  minute,  boy." 


122  Erik  Dorn 

The  messenger  lounged  into  an  editor's  chair. 
Dorn  scribbled  on  a  telegraph  blank : 

"Wait  till  Friday.  I  must  see  you  once  more. 
I  will  call  for  you  at  seven  o'clock  Thursday.  We 
have  never  been  together  in  the  night.  ERIK." 

The  messenger  boy  and  the  telegram  disap- 
peared. Still  the  laughter  persisted.  There  was 
a  jest  in  the  world.  Paris  seemed  a  part  of  it. 
Everything  belonged  to  it. 

"I  wonder  what  the  writers  of  Paris  are  saying," 
Crowley  inquired. 

" Enjoying  themselves,  as  usual,"  Dorn  an- 
swered. "I'll  tell  you  a  secret.  We  live  in  a  mad 
and  inspiring  world." 

There  was  no  final  headline  that  night.  Wed- 
nesday brought  problems  of  conduct.  It  was 
obvious  that  Rachel  was  going  away  because  of 
Anna.  Her  departure  was  a  fact  which  presented 
itself  with  no  finality.  It  resembled  an  insincere 
thought  of  suicide.  Rachel,  having  gone,  would 
still  remain.  The  emotional  prospects  of  the  fare- 
well closed  his  thought  to  the  future.  He  spent 
Wednesday  waiting  for  a  seven  o'clock  on  Thurs- 
day. An  hour  had  detached  itself  from  hours 
that  went  before  and  that  followed.  At  home 
in  the  evening  he  endeavored  to  avoid  his  wife. 
His  letters  to  her  during  her  visit  in  Wisconsin 
had  brought  her  back  violently  joyous.  She  de- 
sired love-making.  He  listened  to  her  pour  out 
ardent  phrases  and  wondered  why  he  felt  no  sense 
of  betrayal  toward  her.  ' '  Conscience, ' '  he  thought, 


Dream  123 

"seems  to  be  a  vastly  over-advertised  com- 
modity." He  sat  beside  Anna,  caressing  her 
hand,  smiling  back  into  her  passion -filled  eyes,  and 
gently  checking  an  impulse  in  him  to  confide  to 
her  that  he  was  in  love  with  Rachel.  It  would 
be  pleasant  to  tell  her  that,  provided  she  would 
nod  her  head  understanding] y,  smile,  and  stroke 
his  hair;  and  answer  something  like,  "You  mean 
Rachel  is  in  love  with  you.  Well,  I  can't  blame 
her.  I'm  horribly  jealous,  but  it  doesn't  matter." 
An  incongruous  sanity  warned  him  to  avoid  con- 
fessions, so  he  contented  himself  by  rolling  the 
situation  over  on  his  tongue,  tasting  the  jealousy  of 
his  wife,  the  drama  of  the  denouement,  and 
remaining  peacefully  smiling  in  his  leather  chair. 

Thursday  arrived.  The  afternoon  dragged. 
He  sat  at  his  desk  wondering  whether  he  was  sor- 
rowful or  not.  The  thought  of  meeting  Rachel 
elated  him.  The  thought  that  she  was  leaving 
and  that  he  would  not  see  her  again  seemed  a 
vague  thing.  He  put  it  out  of  his  mind  with 
ease  and  devoted  himself  to  dreaming  what  he 
would  say,  the  manner  in  which  he  would  bid 
farewell. 

Walking  now  swiftly  in  the  street  toward 
Rachel's  home  his  thought  still  played  with  his 
emotions.  It  was  this  that  partially  caused  his 
laughter.  Also,  now  that  he  was  going  to  see  her, 
there  was  again  the  sense  of  fullness.  An  unthink- 
ing calm,  complete  and  vibrant,  wrapped  him  in 
an  embrace.  The  fullness  and  the  calm  brought 


124  Erik  Dorn 

laughter.  His  thought  amused  him  with  the  words, 
"There's  a  flaming  absurdity  about  everything." 
He  delighted  in  dressing  his  emotions  in  absurd 
phrases,  in  words  that  grimaced  behind  the  rouge 
of  tawdry  ballads.  Thinking  of  Rachel  and  feeling 
the  sudden  lift  of  sadness  and  bewilderment  in  his 
blood,  he  murmured  aloud:  "You  never  know  you 
have  a  heart  till  it  begins  to  break."  The  words 
amused  him.  There  were  other  song  titles  that 
seemed  to  fit.  He  tried  them  all.  ' '  I  don't  know 
why  I  love  you,  but  I  do-o-o."  Delightful  diver- 
sion— airing  the  mystic  desires  of  his  soul  in  the 
tattered  words  of  the  cabaret  yodelers.  "Just  a 
smile,  a  sigh,  a  kiss.  .  .  ."  A  sort  of  revenge, 
as  if  his  vocabulary  with  its  intricate  verbal  so- 
phistications were  avenging  itself  upon  interloping 
emotions.  And,  too,  because  of  a  vague  shame 
which  inspired  him  to  taunt  his  surrender ;  to  com- 
bat it  with  an  irony  such  as  lay  in  the  ridiculous 
phrases.  This  irony  gave  him  a  sense  of  being 
still  outside  his  emotions  and  not  a  submissive  part 
of  them.  "I  am  still  Erik  Dorn,  master  of  my 
fate  and  captain  of  my  soul,"  he  smiled.  But  per- 
haps it  was  most  of  all  the  reaction  of  a  verbal 
vanity.  His  love  was  not  yet  pumping  rhapsodies 
into  his  thought.  Instead,  the  words  that  came 
seemed  to  him  somehow  banal  and  commonplace. 
"I  love  you.  I  want  to  be  with  you  all  the  time. 
When  we  are  together  things  grow  strange  and 
desirable."  Amorous  mediocrities!  So  he  edited 
them  into  a  further  banality  and  thus  concealed 


Dream  125 

his  inability  to  give  lofty  utterance  to  his  emo- 
tions by  amusing  himself  with  deliberately  cheap- 
ened insincerities.  " Saving  my  linguistic  face," 
he  thought  suddenly,  and  laughed  again. 

Rachel  was  sad.     They  left  her  home  in  silence. 

"We'll  go  toward  the  park,"  he  announced.  It 
irritated  him  to  utter  matter-of-fact  directions. 
Why  when  he  had  had  nothing  to  talk  about  had 
he  been  able  to  talk?  And  now  when  there  was 
something,  there  seemed  little  to  say?  Words 
were  obviously  the  delicate  fruit  of  insincerity. 
Silence,  the  dark  flower  of  emotion. 

' '  I  must  go  away. ' '  Rachel  slipped  her  arm  into 
his.  He  stared  at  her.  She  seemed  more  sorrow- 
ful than  tears.  This  annoyed.  It  was  ungrate- 
ful for  her  to  look  like  weeping.  But  she  was  going 
from  him.  He  tried  to  think  of  her  and  himself 
after  they  had  parted,  and  succeeded  only  in  re- 
membering she  was  at  his  side.  So  he  laughed 
quietly. 

"Yes,  to-morrow  the  guillotine  falls,"  he  an- 
swered. ' '  To-night  we  dance  in  each  other's  arms. 
Immemorial  tableau.  Laughter,  love,  and  song 
against  the  perfect  background — death.  Let's 
not  cheat  ourselves  by  being  sad.  To-morrow 
will  be  time  enough." 

He  realized  he  was  collapsing  into  a  pluck-ye- 
the-roses-while-ye-may  strain,  and  stopped,  irri- 
tated. There  was  something  he  should  talk  to  her 
about — the  causes  of  her  departure.  Plans.  Their 
future.  Was  there  a  future  ?  Undoubtedly  some- 


126  Erik  Dorn 

thing  would  have  to  be  arranged.  But  his  mind 
eluded  responsibilities. 

''I'm  happy, ' '  he  whispered.  ' ' I  talk  like  a  fool 
because  I  feel  like  one.  Heedless.  Irresponsible. 
You've  given  me  something  and  I  can  only  look  at 
it  almost  without  thought." 

"It  seems  so  strange  that  you  should  love  me," 
she  answered.  "Because  I've  loved  you  always 
and  never  dreamed  of  you  loving."  She  had  be- 
come melting,  as  if  her  sadness  were  dissolving  into 
caresses.  "Let's  just  walk  and  I'll  remember 
we're  together  and  be  happy,  too." 

Thoughts  vanished  from  him.  He  released  her 
hand  and  they  walked  in  silence  with  their  arms 
together.  A  sleep  descended.  Their  faces,  tran- 
quil and  lighted  by  the  snow,  offered  solitudes  to 
each  other. 

It  was  now  snowing  heavily.  A  thick  white 
lattice  raised  itself  from  the  streets  against  the 
darkness.  The  little  black  hectagonals  of  night 
danced  between  its  spaces.  Long  white  curtains 
painted  themselves  on  the  shadows  of  the  city. 
The  lovers  walked  unaware  of  the  street.  The 
snow  crowded  gently  about  them,  moving  pa- 
tiently like  a  white  and  silent  dream  over  their 
heads.  Phantom  houses  stared  after  them.  Slant- 
ing rooftops  spread  wings  of  silver  in  the  night  and 
drifted  toward  the  moon.  The  half -closed  leaden 
eyes  of  windows*watched  from  another  world. 

The  snow  grew  heavier,  winding  itself  about  the 
yellow  lights  of  street  lamps  and  crawling  with 


Dream  127 

sudden  life  through  the  blur  of  window  rays.  Be- 
neath, the  pavements  opened  like  white  and  nar- 
row fans  in  a  far-away  hand.  Black  figures  lean- 
ing forward  emerged  for  an  instant  from  behind  the 
falling  snow  and  disappeared  again. 

Still  the  lovers  moved  without  words — two 
black  figures  themselves,  arms  together,  leaning 
forward,  staring  with  burning  hearts  and  tranquil 
faces  out  of  a  dream,  as  if  they  did  not  exist,  had 
never  existed;  as  if  in  the  snow  and  night  they  had 
become  an  unreality,  walking  deeper  into  mists — 
yet  never  quite  vanishing  but  growing  only  more 
unreal.  Snow  and  two  lovers  walking  together 
with  the  world  like  a  dream  over  their  heads,  with 
life  lingering  in  their  eyes  like  a  delicately  absent- 
minded  guest — the  thought  drifted  like  a  memory 
through  their  hearts. 

Then  slowly  consciousness  of  themselves  re- 
turned, bringing  with  it  no  relief  of  words.  Their 
hearts  seemed  to  have  grown  weak  with  tears,  and 
in  their  minds  existed  nothing  but  the  dark  vague- 
ness of  despair — the  despair  of  things  that  die  with 
their  eyes  open  and  questing.  Faces  drifting  like 
circles  of  light  in  the  storm.  At  the  end  of  the 
street  a  park.  Here  they  would  vanish  from  each 
other.  The  snow  would  continue  falling  gently, 
patiently,  upon  an  empty  world. 

The  cold  of  Rachel's  fingers  pressed  upon  his 
hand.  Her  face  turned  itself  to  him.  A  moment 
of  happiness  halted  them  both  as  if  they  had  been 
embraced.  A  wonder — the  why  and  where  of 


128  Erik  Dorn 

her  leaving.  But  an  indifference  deprived  him  of 
words. 

"This  is  all  of  life,"  he  muttered.  Rachel  star- 
ing at  him  nodded  her  head  in  echo.  They  were 
standing  motionless  as  if  they  had  forgotten  how 
to  live.  Beyond  this  there  were  no  gestures  to 
make,  nowhere  to  go.  They  had  come  to  a  hori- 
zon— an  end.  Here  was  ecstasy.  What  else? 
Nothing.  Everything,  here.  Sky  and  night  and 
snow  had  fallen  about  their  heads  in  an  ending. 
They  stood  as  if  clinging  to  themselves.  Dorn 
heard  a  soft  laugh  from  her. 

"I  thought  I  had  died,"  Rachel  was  murmuring. 
He  nodded  his  head  in  echo. 

A  lighted  window  lost  in  the  snow  drew  their 
eyes.  People  sat  in  a  room — warm,  stiff  figures. 
The  lovers  stood  smiling  toward  it.  Words,  soft 
and  mocking,  formed  themselves  in  Dorn.  A 
pain  was  pulling  his  heart  away.  The  ecstasy 
that  had  raised  him  beyond  his  emotions  seemed 
suddenly  to  have  cast  him  into  the  fury  of  them. 
He  would  say  mocking  things — absurd  phrases  to 
which  he  might  cling.  Or  else  he  must  weep  because 
of  the  pain  in  him.  "Two  waifs  adrift  in  a  storm, 
peering  into  a  bakery  window  at  the  cookies." 
That  was  the  key.  A  laugh  at  the  dolorous  asi- 
ninity  of  life.  "Face  to  face  with  the  Roman  Pop 
U  Lace.  We  who  are  about  to  die  salute  you." 
Laugh,  a  phrase  of  laughter  or  he  would  stand 
blubbering  like  an  imbecile. 

He  struggled  for  the  theatric  gesture  and  found 


Dream  129 

himself  shivering  at  Rachel's  side,  his  arm  clinging 
about  her  shoulders.  Lord,  what  a  jest!  After 
the  moment  they  had  lived  through,  to  stand 
round-eyed  and  blubbering  before  the  gingerbread 
vision  of  joys  behind  a  lighted  window.  The 
whine  of  a  barrel-organ.  The  sentimental  whim- 
pering of  a  street-corner  Miserere.  And  he  must 
weep  because  of  it — he  who  had  stood  with  his  head 
thrust  through  the  sky.  His  thought,  like  an 
indignant  monitor,  collapsed  with  scoldings.  Let 
it  come,  then!  With  a  sigh  he  gave  himself  to 
tears,  and  they  stood  together  weeping. 

The  little  lighted  room  seemed  an  enchantment 
floating  in  the  scurry  of  the  storm.  It  reached 
with  warm  fingers  into  their  hearts,  whispering  a 
broken  barrel-organ  lullaby  to  them.  Life  shone 
upon  them  out  of  the  lighted  window  and  behind 
it  the  world  of  rocking-chairs  and  fireplaces,  wall 
pictures  and  table  lamps,  lay  like  a  haven  smiling 
a  good-by  to  them.  Their  hearts  become  tombs, 
closed  slowly  and  forever  upon  a  vision. 

"The  world  will  be  a  black  sky  and  the  memory 
of  you  like  a  shining  star  that  I  watch  endlessly." 
He  listened  to  his  words.  They  brought  a  dim 
gladness.  His  phrases  had  finally  capitulated  to 
his  love.  He  could  talk  now  without  the  artifice 
of  banality  to  hide  behind.  Talk,  say  the  unsay- 
able,  bring  his  love  in  misty  word  lines  before  his 
eyes ;  look  and  forget  a  moment. 

Rachel's  voice  at  his  side  said,  "I  love  you  so. 
Oh,  I  love  you  so!" 


130  Erik  Dorn 

Yes,  he  could  talk  now.  His  heart  wagged  a 
tongue.  The  pain  in  him  had  found  words.  The 
mystic  desires  and  torments — words,  words. 

"We'll  remember,  years  later,  and  be  grateful 
we  didn't  bury  our  love  behind  lighted  windows, 
but  left  it  to  wander  forever  and  remain  forever 
alive.  Rachel,  my  dear  one." 

"I  love  you  so!"  she  wept. 

More  words  .  .  .  "it  would  have  been  always 
the  same.  We've  lived  one  moment  and  in  all  of 
life  there's  nothing  more  than  what  we've  had. 
Lovers  who  grow  old  together  live  only  in  their 
yesterdays.  And  their  yesterdays  are  only  a  mo- 
ment— till  the  time  comes  when  their  yesterdays 
die.  Then  they  become  little,  half-dead  people, 
who  wait  in  lighted  rooms,  empty  handed,  fum- 
bling greedily  with  trifles.  .  .  ." 

"I  love  you!"  She  made  a  refrain  for  him. 
"I  don't  know  the  things  you  do.  I  only  love 
you." 

"Rachel  .  ,  ."  He  had  no  belief  in  what  he 
was  saying.  The  things  he  knew?  What?  Noth- 
ing but  pain  and  torment.  Yet  his  heart  went 
on  wagging  out  words:  "All  life  is  a  parting — a 
continual  and  monotonous  parting.  And  most 
hideous  of  all,  a  parting  with  dead  things.  A  say- 
ing good-by  to  things  that  no  longer  exist.  We 
part  with  living  things,  and  so  keep  them,  some- 
how. Your  face  makes  life  for  the  moment  fa- 
miliar. Visions  bloom  like  sad  flowers  in  my  heart. 
Your  body  against  mine  brings  a  torment  even  into 


Dream 


my  words.  Oh,  your  weeping's  the  sound  of  my 
own  heart  dying.  Rachel,  you  are  more  wonder- 
ful than  life.  I  love  you  !  I  feel  as  if  I  must  die 
when  you  go  away.  Crowds,  streets,  buildings  — 
all  empty  outlines.  Empty  before  you  came, 
emptier  when  you  have  gone." 

He  paused.  His  thought  whispered:  "I'll 
remember  things  I  say.  I  mustn't  say  too  much. 
I'm  sad.  Oh,  God,  what  a  mess!" 

They  walked  into  the  park.  A  sudden  matter- 
of-factness  came  into  Dorn's  mind.  He  had  sung 
something  from  his  heart.  Yet  he  remembered 
with  astonishment  it  had  been  a  wary  song.  He 
had  not  asked  her  to  stay.  Had  he  asked  her 
she  would  have  remained.  Curious,  how  he  ac- 
quiesced in  her  going.  A  sense  of  drama  seemed 
to  demand  it.  When  he  had  received  her  message 
the  night  in  the  office  he  had  agreed  at  once.  Why  ? 
Because  he  was  not  in  love?  This  too,  a  make- 
believe,  more  colored,  more  persuasive  than  the 
others?  Wrong.  Something  else.  Anna.  Anna 
was  sending  her  away.  The  figure  of  Anna  loomed 
behind  their  ecstasies.  It  stood  nodding  its  head 
sorrowfully  at  a  good-by  in  the  snow. 

They  were  deep  in  the  park.  Trees  made  still 
gestures  about  them.  The  ivory  silhouettes  of 
trees  haunted  the  distance.  A  spectral  summer 
painted  itself  upon  the  barren  lilac  bushes.  Be- 
neath, the  lawn  slopes  raised  moon  faces  to  the 
night.  Deep  in  the  storm  the  ghost  of  a  bronze 
fountain  emerged  and  remained  staring  at  the  scene. 


132  Erik  Dorn 

It  was  cold.  The  wind  had  died  and  the  snow 
hung  without  motion,  like  a  cloud  of  ribbons  in 
the  air.  The  white  park  gleamed  as  if  under  the 
swinging  light  of  blue  and  silver  lanterns.  The 
night,  lost  in  a  dream  wandered  away  among 
strange  sculptures.  In  the  distance  a  curtain  of 
porphyry  and  bisque  drew  its  shadow  across  the 
moon. 

Rachel  pointed  suddenly  with  her  finger. 

"Look!"  she  whispered.  She  remained  as  if 
in  terror,  pointing. 

Three  figures  were  converging  toward  them — 
black  figures  out  of  the  distant  snow.  Figures  of 
men,  without  faces,  like  three  bundles  of  clothes, 
they  came  toiling  across  the  unbroken  white  of 
the  park,  an  air  of  intense  destinations  about  them. 
Above  the  desolate  field  of  white  the  three  figures 
seemed  suddenly  to  loom  into  heroic  sizes.  They 
reared  to  a  height  and  zigzagged  across  a  nowhere. 

"See,  see!"  Rachel  cried.  She  was  still  point- 
ing. Her  voice  rang  brokenly.  "They're  coming 
for  me,  Erik.  Erik,  don't  you  see?  People  wan- 
dering toward  me.  Horrible  strangers.  Oh,  I 
know,  I  know!"  She  laughed.  "My  grand- 
mother was  a  gypsy  and  she's  telling  my  fortune 
in  the  snow.  Things  that  will  jump  out  of  space 
and  come  at  me,  after  you're  gone." 

The  three  men,  puffing  with  exertion,  converged 
upon  the  walk  and  passed  on  with  a  morose  stare 
at  the  lovers.  Dorn  sighed,  relieved.  He  had 
caught  a  strange  foreboding  sense  out  of  the 


Dream  133 

tableau  of  the  white  field  and  the  three  converging 
black  figures.  ...  If  he  loved  her  why  was  he 
letting  her  go?  If  he  loved  her.  .  .  . 

He  walked  on  suddenly  wearied,  saddened,  un- 
certain. It  was  no  more  than  a  dream  that  had 
touched  his  senses,  a  breath  of  a  dream  that 
lingered  for  a  moment  upon  his  mirror.  It  would 
pass,  as  all  things  pass.  And  he  would  fall  back 
into  the  pattern  of  streets  and  faces,  watching  as 
before  the  emptiness  of  life  make  geometrical 
figures  of  itself.  Yes,  it  was  better  to  have  her  go 
— simpler.  Perhaps  a  desire  would  remain,  a 
breath,  a  moonlit  memory  of  her  loveliness  to 
mumble  over  now  and  then,  like  a  line  of  poetry  al- 
ways unwritten.  Let  her  go.  Beautiful  .  .  . 
wonderful.  .  *  .  These  were  words.  Was  he 
even  sad?  She  was — what?  Another  woman. 

In  the  shadow  of  a  snow-covered  wall  he  paused. 
The  snow  had  ended. 

"Come  closer,"  he  whispered.  She  remained 
silent  as  he  removed  her  overcoat.  He  dropped 
it  in  the  snow  and  threw  his  own  beside  it. 

"We'll  be  warm  for  a  minute  against  each 
other." 

She  was  a  flower  in  his  arms.  She  seemed  to 
vanish  and  become  mist.  Slowly  he  became 
aware  of  her  touch,  of  her  arms  holding  him  and  her 
lips.  She  was  saying: 

"I  am  yours — always — everywhere.  I  will  be  a 
shrine  to  you.  And  whenever  you  want  me  I 
will  come  crawling  on  my  knees  to  you." 


134  Erik  Dorn 

Dying,  dying!  She  was  dying.  Another  mo- 
ment and  the  mist  of  her  would  be  gone.  Rachel. 
.  .  .  Rachel.  I  love  you.  I  send  you  away. 
Oh,  God,  why  do  I  send  you  away?" 

She  was  out  of  his  arms.  Undressed,  naked, 
emptied,  he  stood  unknown  to  himself.  No  words. 
Her  kiss  alone  lived  on  his  lips.  She  was  looking 
at  him  with  burning  wild  eyes.  Expression  seemed 
to  have  left  her.  There  was  something  else  in  her 
face. 

"  I  must  look  at  you.  To  remember,  to  remem- 
ber!" she  gasped.  "Oh,  to  remember  you!  I 
have  never  looked  at  you.  I  have  never  seen  you. 
It's  a  dream.  Who  is  Erik  Dorn?  Who  am  I? 
Oh,  let  me  look  at  you.  .  .  . " 

The  eyes  of  Rachel  grew  marvelously  bright. 
Burned  .  .  .  burned. 

Dorn  stared  into  an  empty  park.  Gone !  Her 
coat  still  in  the  snow.  His  own  beside  it.  He 
stood  smiling,  confused.  His  lips  made  an  apology. 
He  walked  off.  Oh,  yes,  their  coats  together  in 
the  snow.  A  symbol.  He  stumbled  and  a  sudden 
terror  engulfed  him.  "Her  face,"  he  mumbled, 
"like  a  mirror  of  stars."  He  felt  himself  sicken. 
What  had  her  eyes  said?  Eyes  that  burned  and 
devoured  him  and  vanished.  ' '  Rachel, ' '  he  wept, 
"forever!"  He  wondered  why  he  spoke. 

The  park,  white,  gleaming,  desolate,  gave  him 
back  her  face.  Out  of  the  empty  night,  her  face. 
In  the  trees  it  drifted,  haunting  him.  The  print 
of  a  face  was  upon  the  world.  He  went  stumbling 


Dream  135 

toward  it  in  the  snow.     He  covered  his  eyes  with 
his  hands  as  he  walked. 

"Her    face,"    he    mumbled,    "her    face    was 
beautiful.  ..." 


CHAPTER  V     • 

IN  a  dining-room  of  the  city  known  as  the  Blue 
*  Inn,  Anna  Dorn  sat  waiting  for  her  husband. 
Opposite  her  a  laughing-eyed  man  was  talking. 
She  listened  without  intelligence.  He  was  part 
of  old  memories — crowded  rooms  in  which  lights 
had  been  turned  off:  They  had  danced  together 
in  their  youth.  She  had  worn  his  fraternity  pin 
and  walked  with  him  one  night  under  a  moon  and 
kissed  him,  saying:  "I  will  always  love  you.  The 
other  boys  are  different.  You  are  so  nice  and  kind, 
Eddie."  And  Eddie  had  gone  away  east  to  con- 
tinue a  complacent  quest  for  erudition  in  a  univer- 
sity. Almost  forgotten  days  and  places  when  there 
had  been  no  Erik  Dorn,  and  when  one  debated 
which  pumps  to  wear  to  the  dance.  Erik  had 
blotted  them  out.  A  whimsical,  moody  young 
Mr.  Dorn,  laughing  and  carousing  about  the  city 
and  singling  her  out  one  night  at  a  party.  . 
"We  must  get  out  of  here  or  we'll  choke  to  death. 
Come,  we'll  go  down  to  the  lake  and  laugh  at  the 
stars.  They're  the  only  laughable  things  in  the 
world." 

She  looked  sadly  at  the  man  whose  kindly  voice 
sought  to  rally  her  out  of  a  gloom.  Before  the 
laughing  stars  there  had  been  another  day — other 

136 


Dream  13? 

stars,  another  Anna.  All  part  of  another  world. 
Eddie  Meredith  and  another  world  sat  dimly  ap- 
parent across  the  white  linen  of  the  table.  Anec- 
dotes of  old  friends  they  had  shared,  forgotten 
names  and  incidents  reached  through  the  shadows 
of  her  thought  and  stirred  an  alien  memory.  He 
hadn't  changed.  Ten  years — and  he  was  still 
Eddie  Meredith,  with  eyes  that  looked  for  simple 
pleasures  and  seemed  to  find  them.  He  had  al- 
ways found  something  to  laugh  about.  Not  the 
way  Erik  laughed.  Erik's  laugh  was  something 
that  had  never  ceased  to  hurt.  Strange  that 
Eddie's  voice  had  never  grown  tired  of  laughing 
during  the  ten  years. 

The  ache  in  her  heart  lightened  and  she  listened 
with  almost  a  smile — the  ghost  of  another  Anna 
smiling.  It  was  the  other  Anna  who  had  walked 
through  youth  with  a  joyous  indifference  to  life, 
to  everything  but  youth.  Buried  now  deep  under 
years,  Eddie  warmed  it  back.  Eddie  sat  talking 
to  the  ghost  that  had  been  Anna  Winthrop  and 
that  could  not  answer  him. 

He  was  a  poor  talker.  She  was  too  used  to 
Erik.  Simple,  threadbare  phrases,  yet  she  had 
once  thought  him  brilliant.  Perhaps  he  was — a 
different  kind  of  brilliance.  She  noted  how  his 
words  seemed  stimulated  with  an  enthusiasm  be- 
yond their  sense.  Trifles  assumed  an  importance^ 
For  moments  she  felt  herself  looking  at  the  joyous- 
ness  of  an  old  friend  and  forgetting.  Then  as  al- 
ways through  the  day  and  night.  .  .  .  "Erik, 


138  Erik  Dorn 

Erik,"  murmured  itself  in  her  mind  .  .  .  "he 
doesn't  love  me.  Erik,  dear  Erik!"  Over  and 
over,  weaving  itself  into  all  she  said  and  saw. 
Sometimes  it  started  a  panic  in  her.  She  would 
feel  herself  grow  dark,  wild.  Often  it  seemed  to 
bring  death.  Things  would  become  vague  and 
she  would  move  through  the  hours  unaware  of 
them. 

The  joyousness  of  Eddie  drifted  away.  She 
remained  smiling  blankly  at  him.  His  words 
slipped  past  her  ear.  Inside,  she  was  wandering — 
disheveled  thoughts  were  wandering  through  a 
darkness.  At  night  she  lay  beside  him  as  he  slept, 
with  her  eyes  wide  open  and  her  lips  praying, 
' '  Dear  Jesus,  sweet  brother  Jesus,  give  Erik  back 
tome!"  .  .  .  Or  she  would  crawl  out  of  bed  and 
walk  into  a  deserted  room  to  weep.  Here  she  could 
mumble  his  name  till  the  anguish  of  her  tears 
choked  her.  As  the  cold  streets  grew  gray  she 
would  hurry  to  bathe  her  face,  even  rouging  her 
cheeks,  and  return  to  their  bed  to  wait  for  Erik  to 
awake,  that  she  might  caress  him,  warm  something 
back  in  him  with  her  kisses,  and  perhaps  hear  him 
whisper  her  name  as  he  used  to  do.  But  he  drew 
himself  away,  his  eyes  sometimes  filling  with  tears. 
"It's  nothing,  Anna,  nothing.  Please  don't  ask. 
I  don't  know  what  it  is.  My  head  or  something. 
I  feel  black  inside.  .  .  ."  And  he  would  hurry  to 
work,  not  waiting  for  her  to  join  him  at  breakfast. 

Then  there  had  been  nights  when  he  held  her  in 
his  arms  thinking  she  was  asleep,  and  she  felt  his 


Dream  139 

tears  dropping  over  her  face — tears  of  silence. 
She  would  lie  trembling  with  a  wild  joy,  yet  not 
daring  to  open  her  eyes  or  speak,  knowing  he  would 
move  away.  These  moments,  feigning  sleep  and 
listening  to  Erik  weeping  softly  against  her  cheek, 
had  been  her  only  happiness  in  the  four  black 
months  since  the  change  had  come  to  him.  He 
still  loved  her.  Yes.  .  V  .  Oh,  God,  it  was 
something  else.  Perhaps  madness.  She  would 
drift  to  sleep  as  his  weeping  ceased,  long  after  it 
ceased,  and  half  dreams  would  come  to  her  of 
nursing  him  through  terrible  darknesses,  of  warm- 
ing him  with  her  life,  of  magically  driving  away  the 
things  that  were  tormenting  him  out  of  his  mind — 
great  black  things.  Through  the  day  she  hungered 
for  his  return  from  work,  that  she  might  look  at 
him  again,  even  though  the  sight  of  him,  dark  and 
aloof,  tore  at  her  heart  till  she  grew  faint. 

She  had  never  thought  of  questioning  him 
calmly.  There  had  been  no  suspicion  of  "some- 
one else."  That  was  a  thing  beyond  even  the 
wildest  disorder  of  her  imaginings.  It  was  only 
that  Erik  was  restless,  perhaps  tired  of  his  home, 
of  her  too  much  loving  and  longing  to  go  some- 
where— away.  Her  awe  of  his  brain,  of  his 
strange,  always  impenetrable  character,  adjusted 
itself  to  the  change  in  him.  There  were  mysteri- 
ous things  in  Erik — things  she  couldn't  hope  to 
understand.  Now  these  unknown  things  had 
grown  too  big  in  him.  He  was  different  from 
other  men,  not  to  be  questioned  as  one  might 


140  Erik  Dorn 

question  other  men.     So  she  must  wander  about 
blindly,  carefully,  and  drive  things  away. 

She  came  out  of  her  sorrow  reveries  and  smiled. 
Eddie  was  still  talking.  The  music  of  a  violin, 
harp,  and  piano  was  playing  with  a  rollicking  wist- 
fulness  through  the  clatter  and  laughter  of  the 
cafe.  Eddie  was  saying,  "There,  that's  better. 
That  makes  you  look  like  Anna.  You  were 
looking  like  somebody  else." 

His  jolly  eyes  had  a  keenness.  She  must  dis- 
semble better.  Erik  would  come  in  a  moment 
and  Eddie  must  never  think.  .  .  . 

"I've  heard  about  your  husband,  the  lucky 
dog ! ' '  Eddie  beamed  at  her  impudently.  ' '  Think, ' ' 
he  exploded,  "of  meeting  you  accidentally  after 
ten  years.  Wow!  Ten  years!  They  say  them- 
selves quickly,  don't  they?  By  the  way,  there's 
a  curious  fellow  coming  to  meet  me  here.  I'll 
drag  him  in.  If  your  Erik  don't  like  it  I'll  sit  on 
him  till  he  does.  His  name's  Tesla — Emil  Tesla. 
Bomb-thrower  or  something.  I  don't  know  ex- 
actly. He's  helped  me  with  my  collection.  Oh,  I 
forgot.  You  don't  know  about  that.  I  keep 
thinking  that  you  know  me.  You  see  nothing  has 
changed  in  me.  I'm  still  the  same  Eddie — richer, 
balder,  foolisher,  perhaps.  It  seems  you  ought  to 
know  all  about  the  ten  years  without  being  told. 
But  I'll  tell  you.  I'm  an  art  collector  on  the  sly. 
Pictures — horrible  things  that  don't  look  like 
anything.  I  don't  know  why  I  collect  them, 
honestly.  Pictures  mean  nothing  to  me.  Never 


Dream  141 

did.  Particularly  the  kind  I  pick  up.  But  it's 
a  habit  that  keeps  me  cheerful.  Better  than  col- 
lecting stamps.  Cubist,  futurist,  expressionist. 
Ever  see  the  damn  things?  I  gobble  them  up.  I 
guess  because  they're  cheap.  Here  he  is — the 
young  fellow  with  the  soft  face." 

Meredith  rose  and  jubilantly  waved  a  napkin. 
A  stocky  man  in  loose  clothes  nodded  at  him  and 
approached. 

"Not  Mrs.  Erik  Dorn,"  he  repeated.  Anna 
nodded.  The  sound  of  her  husband's  name  on 
others'  lips  always  elated  her,  even  now.  She 
lost  for  a  moment  the  aversion  she  felt  at  the 
touch  of  Tesla's  hand.  It  seemed  boneless.  .  .  . 
They  would  all  eat  together.  Anna  was  an  old 
school  friend.  Years  ago,  ah !  many  years. 

Tesla  fastened  a  repugnantly  appreciative  eye 
upon  her,  as  if  he  were  becoming  privy  to  an  ex- 
clusive secret.  She  frowned  inwardly.  An  ugly 
man  with  something  bubbly  about  him. 

"I  was  telling  Mrs.  Dorn  you  were  a  bomb- 
thrower  or  something, ' '  Meredith  announced.  His 
good  spirits  frisked  about  the  table  like  a  troupe  of 
frolicsome  puppies. 

"Only  an  apprentice,"  Tesla's  soft  voice — a 
voice  like  his  hands — answered.  "But  why  talk 
of  such  things  in  the  presence  of  a  beautiful  lady." 
He  bowed  his  head  at  her.  She  thought,  "An 
unbearable  man,  completely  out  of  place.  How  in 
the  world  could  Eddie.  .  .  . " 

The    music   had    changed.       Muted    cornets, 


Erik  Dorn 


banjos  and  saxophones  were  wailing  out  a  tom- 
tom adagio.  People  were  rising  from  tables  and 
moving  toward  a  dancing  space.  Eddie  stood 
beside  her  bowing  with  elaborate  stiffness. 

"My  next  dance,  Miss  Winthrop." 

Anna  looked  up  blankly. 

"Good  Lord,  have  you  forgotten  your  own 
name?  Come  on.  You  know  Dorn,  don't  you, 
Emil?  Well,  throw  a  fork  at  him  when  he  shows 
up.  Come,  we  haven't  danced  together  for  ten 
years.  The  last  time  was.  .  .  .  " 

"The  last  time  was  the  senior  prom,"  Anna 
interrupted  quickly.  "You  see  I  haven't  for- 
gotten." She  stood  mechanically. 

As  they  walked  between  tables  and  diners, 
he  said,  "I  sure  feel  like  a  boy  again  seeing 
you." 

"I'm  afraid  I've  almost  forgotten  how  to  dance, 
Eddie.  My  husband  doesn't  dance  much." 

"Here  we  are!  Like  old  days,  eh?  Remember 
Jimmie  Goodland,  my  deadly  rival  for  your 
hand?" 

They  were  dancing. 

'  '  Well,  he's  married.     Three  kids.  '  ' 

"And  how  many  children  have  you,  Eddie?" 

"Me?"  He  laughed.  "Have  I  forgotten  to 
tell  you  that?  Well,  I'm  still  at  large,  untram- 
meled,  free.  There've  been  women,  but  not  the 
woman." 

His  voice  put  on  a  pleasing  facetiousness. 

"Mustn't  mind   an   pld  friend   getting   senti- 


Dream  143 

mental.  But  after  you  they  had  to  measure  up 
to  something — and  didn't." 

Since  the  night  Erik  had  singled  her  out  at  the 
party  no  man  had  spoken  to  her  that  way.  She 
listened  slightly  amazed.  It  confused  her.  His 
eyes,  as  they  danced,  were  jolly  and  polite.  But 
they  watched  her  too  keenly.  Erik  might  mis- 
understand. Her  love  somehow  resented  being 
looked  at  and  spoken  to  like  that.  She  hurried 
back  to  their  first  topic. 

"What  became  of  Millie  Pugh,  Eddie?" 

"Married.  A  Spaniard  or  something.  Two 
kids  and  an  automobile.  Saw  them  in  Brazil 
somewhere." 

"And  Arthur  Stearns?" 

"Fatter  than  an  alderman.  Runs  a  gas 
works  or  something  in  Detroit.  Married.  One 
kid." 

Anna  laughed.  "You  sound  like  an  almanac  of 
dooms." 

"Well,  all  married  but  me— little  Eddie,  the  boy 
bachelor,  faithful  unto  death  to  the  memories  of 
his  childhood.  Do  you  remember  the  night  we 
ran  Mazurine's  out  of  ice-cream?" 

This  was  another  world,  another  Anna.  She 
closed  her  eyes  dreamily  to  the  movement  of  the 
dance  and  music — delicious  drugs. 

1 '  Faster, ' '  she  whispered. 

They  broke  into  quicker  steps.  "Erik.  .  .  . 
Erik.  .  .  .  my  own.  Love  me  again.  Come 
back  to  me.  .  .  . "  Still  in  her  thought,  but 


144  Erik  Dorn 

fainter,  deeper  down.  Not  words  but  a  sigh  that 
moved  to  the  rhythm  of  the  music. 

"And  how  may  children  have  you?" 

She  answered  without  emotion,  as  if  she  were 
talking  with  a  distant  part  of  herself.  "  There  was 
a  little  boy.  He  died  as  a  baby.  We  haven't 
any." 

Deep,  kindly  eyes  looking  at  Jier  as  they  danced. 
"I'm  so  sorry,  Anna." 

She  whispered  again , ' '  Faster ! "  A  shadow  over 
his  face.  She  must  be  careful  of  his  eyes — eyes 
that  laughed,  but  keen,  almost  as  keen  as  Erik's. 
"My  Erik  .  .  .  my  own.  ..."  It  was  alia 
dream,  a  nightmare  of  her  own  inventing.  Noth- 
ing had  happened.  Imaginings.  Erik  loved  her. 
Why  else  should  he  weep  and  kiss  her  when  he 
thought  her  asleep?  He  loved  her,  he  loved 
her! 

Her  face  grew  bright.  Faster.  Always 
to  dance  and  dream  of  Erik.  She  must  tell 
Eddie.  .  .  . 

"Erik  is  wonderful.  I'm  dying  to  have  you 
meet  him.  Oh,  Eddie,  he's  wonderful!" 

Now  she  could  laugh  and  enjoy  herself.  Some- 
thing had  emptied  out  of  her  breasts — cold  iron, 
warm  lead.  She  was  lighter,  easy  to  bend  and 
glide  to  the  music.  Everything  was  easy.  Her 
face  lighted  by  something  deeper  than  a  smile, 
she  danced  in  silence.  Eddie  was  far  away — ten 
years  away.  His  eyes  that  were  smiling  at  her 
were  no  eyes  at  all.  They  were  part  of  the  music 


Dream  145 

and  movement  that  caressed  her  with  the  sweet- 
ness of  life,  of  being  loved  by  Erik.  .  .  . 

Tesla  watched  his  friend  lead  the  red-haired 
lady  away  to  dance.  For  a  while  there  lingered 
about  him  the  air  of  unctious  submission  that  had 
revolted  Anna.  Then  it  vanished.  His  face  as  he 
sat  alone  seemed  to  tighten.  The  flabbiness  of  his 
eyes  became  something  else.  Diners  at  other 
tables  caught  glimpses  of  him  while  they  ate.  A 
commanding  figure,  rugged,  youthful-faced.  Fea- 
tures that  made  definite  lines,  compelling  lines,  in 
the  blur  of  other  features.  A  man  of  certainties, 
yet  with  something  weak  about  him.  His  eyes 
were  like  a  child's.  They  did  not  quite  belong 
in  his  face.  There,  eyes  should  have  gleamed, 
stared  with  intensities.  Instead,  eyes  purred — 
abstract,  tender  eyes;  the  kind  that  attracted 
women  sometimes  because  they  were  almost  like  a 
women's  eyes  dreaming  of  lovers. 

"Hello,  Tesla!" 

Again  the  fawning  lights,  smiles,  bowings.  This 
was  Dorn — a  Somebody.  Somebodies  always 
changed  Tesla.  There  was  a  thing  in  him  that 
smirked  before  Somebodies,  as  if  he  were  a  timor- 
ous puppy  wagging  its  tail  and  leaping  about  on 
flabby  legs. 

"Mrs.  Dorn  is  sitting  here  with  a  friend. 
They're  dancing.  We're  all  at  this  table,  Mr. 
Dorn." 

Dorn  caught  the  eager  innuendo  of  his  voice. 
He  knew  Tesla  vaguely  as  a  radical,  an  author  of 

xo 


Erik  Dorn 


pamphlets.  Tesla  continued  to  talk,  a  sycophan- 
tic purr  in  his  words.  .  .  .  The  war  was  financed 
by  international  bankers.  Didn't  he  think  so? 
America  was  being  drawn  in  by  Wall  Street  — 
to  make  the  loans  to  the  Allies  stand  up.  But 
something  was  going  to  happen.  The  eyes  of  the 
workers  were  opening  slowly  all  over  the  world. 
In  Russia  already  a  beginning  of  realities.  Ah, 
think  of  the  millions  dying  for  nothing,  advanc- 
ing or  improving  nothing  by  their  death.  Sol- 
diers, heroes,  workingmen,  all  blind  acrobats  in 
another  man's  circus.  But  something  was  hap- 
pening. Revolution.  This  grewsome  horseplay 
in  Europe's  front  yard  would  start  it.  And  then 
—  watch  out  ! 

The  voice  of  Emil  Tesla,  eager,  fawning,  had 
yet  another  quality  in  it.  It  promised,  as  if  it 
could  not  do  justice  to  the  things  it  was  saying  and 
must  be  careful,  soft,  polite.  Dorn  felt  the  man 
and  his  power.  Not  a  puppy  on  flabby  legs  but 
a  brute  mastiff  with  a  wild  bay  that  must  come  out 
in  little  whines,  because  the  music  was  playing, 
because  he  was  talking  to  Somebody.  A  man 
physically  beaten  by  life,  his  body  scraping,  bow- 
ing; his  words  mumbling  confusedly  in  the  pres- 
ence of  other  words.  Yet  a  powerful  man  with  a 
tremendous  urge  that  might  some  day  hurl  him 
against  the  stars.  He  had  something.  r  .  . 

To  Tesla's  sentences  Dorn  dropped  a  yes  or  no. 
Tesla  needed  no  replies.  He  purred  on  eagerly 
before  his  listener,  seeming  to  whine  for  his  appre- 


Dream  14? 

ciation  and  good  will,  yet  unconscious  of  him.  A 
waiter  brought  wine.  Dorn  stared  at  the  topaz 
tint  in  his  glass.  His  eyes  had  changed.  They 
no  longer  smiled.  A  heaviness  gleamed  from 
them.  The  thing  in  his  heart  would  not  go. 
Heavy  hands  turning  him  over  and  over,  as  if  life 
were  tearing  him,  crowds  and  streets  pulling  at 
him.  There  had  been  no  rest  since  Rachel  had 
gone. 

He  sat  almost  oblivious  of  Tesla.  In  the  back 
of  his  brain  the  city  tumbled — an  elephantine 
grimace,  a  wilderness  of  angles,  a  swarm  of  ges- 
tures that  beat  at  his  thought.  But  before  his 
eyes  there  were  no  longer  the  precise  patterns  of 
another  day.  He  was  no  longer  outside.  He  had 
been  sucked  into  something,  the  something  that 
he  had  been  used  to  refer  to  condescendingly  as 
life.  People  sitting  in  a  room  like  this  had  been 
furniture  that  amused  him.  Now  they  were  alive, 
repulsive,  with  a  meaning  to  them  that  sickened 
him.  Streets  had  once  been  stone  and  gesture. 
Now  they,  too,  were  meanings  that  sickened.  A 
sanity  in  which  he  alone  was  insane,  surrounded 
him;  a  completion  in  which  he  alone  seemed  in- 
complete. Men  and  women  together — tired  faces, 
lighted  faces — all  with  destinations  that  satisfied 
them.  And  he  wandering,  knocked  from  place  to 
place  by  heavy  hands,  pushed  through  crowds, 
dropped  into  chairs.  Time  itself  a  torment  into 
which  he  kept  thrusting  himself  deeper. 

The  change  in  Erik  Dorn  had  come  to  him  with 


148  Erik  Dorn 

a  cynicism  of  its  own.  It  laughed  with  its  own 
laughter.  A  mind  foreign  to  him  spoke  to  him 
through  the  day.  .  .  .  "You  would  smile  at 
life,  Erik;  well,  here  it  is.  Easy  for  a  sleeper  to 
smile.  But  smile  now.  Life  is  a  surface,  eh? 
shifting  about  into  designs  for  the  delectation  of 
your  eyes.  Watch  it  shifting  then.  Darkness 
and  emptiness  in  a  can-can.  Watch  the  tumbling 
streets  that  have  no  meanings.  No  meanings? 
Yet  there's  a  torment  in  them  that  can  hoist  you 
up  by  your  placid  little  heels  and  swing  you 
round  .  .  .  round,  and  send  you  flying.  A 
witch's  flight  with  the  scream  of  stars  whistling 
through  it.  Flight  that  has  no  ending  and  no 
direction  ...  no  face  of  Rachel  at  its  ending. 
Burning  eyes,  devouring  eyes  .  .  .  face  like  a 
mirror  of  stars.  There's  a  face  in  the  world  and 
you  go  after  it,  heels  in  air,  tongue  frozen,  breath- 
ing always  an  emptiness  that  chokes.  Easy  for 
sleepers  to  dawdle  with  words  and  say  carelessly 
life  is  this,  life  is  that.  What  the  hell's  the  differ- 
ence what  life  is  ?  It  means  nothing  to  me.  People 
and  their  posturings  mean  nothing.  But  what 
about  now?  A  contact,  a  tying  up  with  postur-^ 
ings,  and  the  streets  and  crowds  tearing  you  into 
gestures  not  your  own.  .  .  . " 

Aloud  he  would  say,  "My  love  for  her  has  given 
me  a  soul  and  I've  become  a  fool  along  with  other 
fools." 

He  did  not  think  of  Rachel  in  words.  There 
were  moments  of  dream  when  he  made  plans — a 


Dream  149 

fantastic  amorous  rigmarole  of  Rachel  and  him- 
self walking  together  over  the  heads  of  the  world ; 
child  dreams  that  substituted  themselves  for  the 
realities  he  demanded.  But  these  were  infre- 
quent. He  was  learning  to  avoid  them  as  one 
avoids  a  drug  that  soothes  and  then  doubles  the 
hunger  of  the  nerves. 

As  now  in  the  caf6,  listening  to  Tesla,  watching 
with  dark  eyes  the  scene,  there  was  a  turning  of 
heavy  hands  in  him  to  which  he  must  not  give 
thought.  Watch  the  caf6,  listen  to  Tesla,  talk, 
eat  and  spit  out  a  disgust  for  the  things  of  which  he 
was  a  part — things  from  which  he  demanded 
Rachel  and  a  surcease  to  the  pain  in  him.  And 
that  only  stifled  with  the  emptiness  of  her. 

Out  of  the  wretchedness  of  garbled  emotions 
that  had  become  the  whole  of  Erik  Dorn,  his  vo- 
cabulary arose  with  a  facile  paint  brush  and 
painted  upon  his  thought.  His  phrases  wandered 
about  looking  for  subjects  as  if  he  must  taunt 
himself  with  details  that  forever  brought  him 
loathing. 

Before  he  had  seen  pictures  complete,  rhythmic 
pictures  of  streets  and  crowds,  pleasantly  blurred 
and  in  motion.  Now  he  saw  them  as  if  life  was 
in  a  state  of  continual  pause — an  arrested  cinema- 
tograph; grotesquely  detailed  and  with  the 
meaning  of  motion  out  of  it.  A  picture  waiting 
something  to  set  it  moving.  This  something  he 
could  not  give  it.  Helplessly  his  words  con- 
tinued to  trace  themselves  over  the  outlines  of 


Erik  Dorn 


scenes  about  him,  as  if  trying  to  stir  them  into 
a  life. 

This  scene  consciousness  had  become  almost  a 
mania  in  the  four  months.  But  in  the  mechani- 
cal, phraseological  movement  of  his  thought  he 
was  able  to  hide  himself.  Thus  he  listened  to 
Tesla  and  looked  at  the  cafe.  The  inn  was  filled 
with  people  —  elaborately  dresssed  women  and 
shiningly  groomed  men  —  grouped  about  white- 
linened,  silver-laden  tables  ;  an  ornamental  grimac- 
ing little  multitude  come  to  the  cafe  as  to  some 
grave  rite,  moving  to  the  tables  with  an  unctious 
nonchalance.  Women  dressed  in  effulgent  silks, 
their  flesh  gleaming  among  the  spaces  of  exotic 
plumage,  gleaming  through  the  flares  of  luxurious 
satin  distortions.  A  company  that  gestured, 
grimaced  with  the  charm  of  lustful  marionettes. 
Flesh  reduced  to  secrecy.  Lust,  dream  in  hiding. 
From  the  secret  world  they  inhabited,  moist  bodies 
beckoned  with  a  luscious,  perverse  denial  of 
artifice. 

The  picture  of  it  shot  into  his  eyes,  arousing  a 
hate  in  his  thought.  He  heard  Tesla  .  .  .  "life 
has  changed  with  the  industrialization  of  society. 
It  is  no  longer  a  question  of  who  shall  run  the 
court.  The  court  is  an  atrophied  institution,  a 
circus  surviving  in  the  backyard  of  history.  It's 
a  question  of  who  shall  run  the  factory.  De- 
mocracy is  a  thing  that  touches  only  politicians. 
The  factory  touches  people.  Democracy  cleared 
the  way  but  it's  not  a  way  in  itself.  It's  still  the 


Dream 


court  idea  of  government.  Steam,  gas,  and  elec- 
tricity made  the  French  revolution  obsolete  even 
before  it  was  ended.  This  war  .  .  .  good  God, 
Dorn,  blood  pouring  over  toys  we've  out- 
grown! ..." 

Still  fawning  voiced,  but  with  a  bay  underneath. 
Dorn  listened  and  remained  elsewhere  —  among  a 
turning  of  heavy  hands.  Yet  he  thought  of  Tesla, 
"He  makes  an  impression  on  me.  I'll  remember 
his  words.  A  man  of  power,  rooted  in  visions." 
He  replied  suddenly,  "I'm  convinced  the  weak  will 
rule  some  day,  if  that's  what  you're  driving  at. 
The  race  can  survive  only  as  long  as  its  weakest 
survive.  Christianity  started  it.  Socialism  will 
carry  it  a  step  further.  The  fight  against  the 
individual.  What  else  is  any  institutionalism? 
A  struggle  to  circumvent  the  biological  destiny  of 
man,  which  is  the  same  as  the  biological  destiny 
of  fish  —  extinction.  That's  what  we're  primarily 
engaged  in.  The  race  must  protect  its  weak,  so  it 
invents  laws  to  curb  the  instincts  and  power  of  its 
strong.  And  we  obey  the  laws  —  a  matter  of  ad- 
justing ourselves  ludicrously  to  our  weaknesses 
and  endowing  these  adjustments  with  high  names. 
Bolshevism  will  be  the  law  of  to-morrow  and  wear 
even  a  higher  name  than  Christianity.  Yester- 
day it  was,  'only  the  poor  shall  inherit  heaven, 
only  crippled  brains  and  weaker  visions  shall  see 
God.'  To-morrow  the  slogan  will  have  been 
brought  down  to  earth.  Yes,  they'll  run  the  fac- 
tories —  your  masses.  There's  the  strength  in 


152  Erik  Dorn 

them  of  logic — a  logic  opposed  to  evolution. 
They'll  run  the  factories  as  they  now  run  heaven 
— an  Institution  nicely  accommodated  to  their 
fears  and  weaknesses." 

Dorn  paused.  He  was  not  thinking.  People 
said  things.  An  automatic  box  of  phrases  in  him 
released  answers.  Tesla  was  replying,  not  so 
fawningly,  the  bay  beneath  his  soft  words  master- 
ing his  sycophantic  tones.  Let  him  talk.  He  had 
something  to  talk  about.  He  saw  something. 
There  was  a  new  tableau  in  Tesla's  brain.  Let 
him  keep  murmuring  things  about  it — suavely, 
unctuously  letting  off  steam. 

Like  a  man  returning  drearily  to  his  game  of 
solitaire,  Dorn  fastened  his  eyes  again  upon  the 
scene.  Looking  at  things  would  keep  him  from 
thinking.  To  think  was  to  cry  out.  He  had 
learned  this.  His  eyes,  dark  and  heavy,  fastened 
themselves  upon  the  walls  of  the  inn  lost  in 
shadows,  painted  with  nymphs  and  satyrs  sprawl- 
ing over  tapestried  landscapes.  He  devoured 
their  details,  his  heart  searching  in  them  for  the 
mystery  of  Rachel  and  finding  only  a  deeper 
emptiness — insistently  naked  bodies  of  nymphs 
lying  like  newly  bathed  housemaids  amid  stiff 
park  sceneries.  Miracles  of  photographic 
lechery.  Would  people  about  him  look  like  that 
naked?  Thank  God  they  were  dressed!  An 
ankle  in  silk  was  better  than  a  thigh  in  sunlight. 
An  old  saw  .  .  .  beauty  lay  in  the  imagination. 
Women  removed  their  beauty  with  their  clothes. 


Dream  153 

The  nymphs  on  the  wall  reminded  one  chiefly 
that  they  were  careful  to  scrub  their  legs  all  the 
way  up. 

He  sighed  and  watched  the  eyes  of  diners  look 
at  the  walls.  Her  face — a  mirror  of  stars.  What 
else  was  there  but  her  face?  Other  faces,  of  course. 
A  revulsion  of  other  strange  faces.  Men  studying 
the  naked  figures  on  the  walls  with  profound  but 
aloof  interest,  eyeing  the  women  near  them 
shrewdly  as  they  turned  away.  Women  with 
serious,  unconcentrated  eyes  upon  the  paintings, 
turning  tenderly  towards  their  escorts.  He  would 
die  of  looking  at  faces  that  were  not  hers.  A 
love-sick  schoolboy.  God,  what  an  ass!  Tesla 
was  becoming  an  insufferable  bore.  What  in 
God's  name  did  he  have  to  do  with  masses  raising 
their  skinny  arms  from  a  smoking  field  and  crying 
aloud,  " Bread!"  Tesla  had  a  lot  to  do  with  it. 
The  skinny  arms,  the  smoking  field,  and  the  bal- 
loon with  the  word  "bread"  in  it  were  Tesla 's 
soul.  But  his  soul  was  different — heavy  hands 
turning. 

Dorn  drank  wine  from  his  glass.  Anna, 
dancing  with  a  plump,  laughing  stranger,  flitted 
through  the  distance.  A  deeper  turning  over  of 
iron  in  his  heart  at  the  glimpse  of  her.  The  scene 
no  longer  could  divert  him.  The  thought  of  Anna 
dropped  like  a  curtain  upon  a  picture.  What 
could  he  do  ?  What  ?  At  night  he  grew  sick  lying 
beside  her.  It  wasn't  conscience.  There  was 
nothing  wrong  about  loving  someone  else.  But 


i54  Erik  Dorn 

there  was  an  uncanniness  about  it.  Lying  be- 
side a  woman  who  didn't  know  what  was  in  his 
mind.  He  would  lie  thinking,  "Oh,  Rachel,  I 
love  Rachel,'*  repeating  almost  idiotic  love  words 
for  Rachel  in  his  mind.  And  Anna  would  smile 
patiently  at  him,  unaware.  That  was  the  most 
intolerable  thing.  The  fact  she  didn't  know. 
And  also  the  fact  that  he  must  remain  inarticu- 
late. He  must  sit  with  his  heart  choking  him  and 
his  head  in  a  blaze,  and  keep  stuffing  words  back 
down  his  throat.  Through  the  day  he  tormented 
himself  with  the  thought,  "I  must  tell  her.  I 
can't  keep  this  thing  up  any  longer."  But  when 
he  saw  her  it  was  impossible  to  tell  her.  A 
single  phrase  would  end  it.  He  held  the  phrase 
on  his  lips — as  if  it  were  a  knife  balanced  over 
Anna's  heart.  "I  love  Rachel."  That  would 
end  it.  But  it  was  impossible.  He  couldn't  say 
it.  Why?  He  sat,  trying  to  get  a  glimpse  of  her 
dancing  again  and  tried  to  avoid  answering  him- 
self. It  was  something  he  mustn't  answer.  He 
must  get  away  from  his  damned  thought.  His 
eyes  fastened  themselves  upon  the  fountain  in  the 
center  of  the  room.  It  was  Anna  that  tormented 
him,  not  Rachel.  Anna  .  .  .  Anna.  .  .  . 
The  tension  broke.  He  was  looking  at  the  foun- 
tain surmounted  by  a  marble  nude  crouched  in  a 
posture  of  surprise;  probably  disturbed  by  her 
nudity.  It  was  necessary  for  nudity  to  be 
disturbed  by  itself.  Did  virgins  eyeing  themselves 
in  mirrors  blush  with  shame?  Unquestionably. 


Dream  155 

The  nude  peered  into  the  water  of  a  large  tiled 
basin.  A  gush  of  water  over  her  managed  to  veil 
her  unsuccessfully  in  an  endless  spray.  Water 
filled  the  air  with  an  odorless  spice. 

"  .  .  .  the  first  blow  will  come  out  of  Russia, 
Dorn.  The  Russians  have  not  been  side-tracked 
into  the  phantasms  of  democracy.  They  still 
think  straight.  Civilization  hasn't  crippled  them 
with  phrases.  They  are  still  what  you  would  call 
biological.  And  dreams  live  in  them.  Yes,  I 
know  what  you'll  say  .  .  .  heavy  dreams.  But 
here  in  America  there  are  no  dreams — yet. 
Nothing  but  paper.  Paper  thoughts.  Paper 
morals.  Everything  paper.  Russia  will  send 
out  fire  to  burn  up  this  paper.  Destroy  it.  Leave 
nothing  behind — not  even  ashes." 

True  enough.  Why  answer  it?  But  what 
difference  did  it  make  if  paper  burned  ?  Was  man 
after  all  a  creature  consecrated  to  institutions, 
doomed  to  expend  himself  upon  institutions?  A 
hundred  million  nervous  systems,  each  capable  of 
ecstasies  and  torments,  devoting  themselves  to  the 
business  of  political  brick-laying.  Always  yowl- 
ing about  new  bricks.  Politics — a  deformity  of 
the  imagination ;  a  game  of  tiddledy-winks  played 
with  guns  and  souls. 

He  breathed  with  relief.  Abstractions  were  a 
drug.  But  his  thinking  ended.  Blue  electric 
lights  cast  an  amorous  glow — an  artificial  moon- 
light— upon  tables  surrounding  the  fountain.  Be- 
neath the  cobalt  water  of  the  basin,  colored  fish 


156  Erik  Dorn 

gliding  like  a  weaving  procession  of  little  fat  Man- 
darins. The  remainder  of  the  room  also  blue  from 
shaded  lights.  That  was  why  they  dubbed  it  the 
Blue  Inn.  Blue  lights  made  the  Blue  Inn.  The 
air  was  heavy  with  the  uncoiling  lavender  tinsel  of 
tobacco  smoke.  A  luxurious  suppression  as  about 
some  priapic  altar  .  .  .  artificial  shadows, 
painted  lights,  forlorn  fountain  ripplings. 

"Oh,  Erik,  I've  been  dancing.  This  is  Mr. 
Meredith.  I  once  told  you  about  him.  The 
music  is  simply  wonderful  here." 

Tesla,  flabby-eyed  and  almost  maliciously  polite, 
as  if  he  would  expose  the  innate  absurdity  of  polite- 
ness, tipped  over  a  water  glass  in  his  floppings. 
Anna,  still  alive  with  the  joyousness  that  had  come 
to  her,  seated  herself  beside  her  husband.  Her 
hand  rested  eagerly  on  his  arm.  He  must  love 
her  .  .  .  must.  Must.  It  had  been  only  a 
nightmare  she'd  invented.  Oh,  God,  did  anything 
matter  as  long  as  they  loved  each  other? 

"Tired,  dearest?" 

He  looked  at  her  and  tried  to  lighten  his  eyes. 

"Yes,  a  little.     The  damned  war." 

"I'm  so  sorry." 

She  mustn't  ask  him  to  dance.  He  was  tired. 
She  would  coddle  him.  He  was  only  a  baby — 
tired,  sleepy,  sad.  She  must  ask  no  questions. 
Only  love.  Before  her  love  the  darkness  of  his 
face  would  clear  away  as  before  sunshine. 

"I'm  so  happy,  Erik  darling!" 

Her  fingers  quivered  on  his  arm.     He  looked  at 


Dream  15? 

her  and  smiled  out  of  misty  eyes.  Of  all  the  un- 
bearable things  in  an  unbearable  world  her  happi- 
ness was  the  most  unbearable.  She  nodded,  as 
if  she  understood.  Her  pretense  of  understanding 
was  a  ghastly  business.  But  Anna  smiled.  Poor 
Erik,  he  was  only  a  boy.  If  only  they  were  alone ! 
If  Eddie  and  Tesla  and  the  whole  world  would  go 
away  and  leave  her  with  him,  to  kiss  his  eyes  and 
stroke  his  hair.  Sleep,  baby,  sleep.  .  .  .  What 
a  crazy,  wild  thing,  thinking  that  Erik  no  longer 
loved  her.  No  longer  loved  her !  Dear  God,  she  was 
only  a  part  of  him.  He  must  love  her.  .  .  .  Must! 

The  talk  kept  on — words  bubbling  from  Tesla, 
Eddie  frisking  with  laughter. 

"You  must  dance  with  me,  Erik.  It's  been  so 
long  since  we  danced."  There — she  shouldn't 
have  asked.  She  didn't  mean  to.  Her  eyes 
apologized.  When  he  answered,  "No,  I'm  tired," 
there  was  wine  from  a  glass  that  warmed  the  little 
coldness  his  words  dropped  into  her. 

Listening  to  her,  answering  with  words  he  tried 
to  soften  and  make  alive,  Dorn  tried  to  occupy 
himself  with  the  details  of  the  scene  again.  Could 
he  keep  on  living  as  two  persons — one  of  them 
turning  over  and  over  in  a  fire  that  consumed  him 
— and  the  other  making  phrases,  gestures,  as  if 
there  were  no  fire  consuming  him?  If  he 
kept  his  eyes  working,  perhaps.  He  hated  Anna. 
But  that  was  because  he  couldn't  bear  the  thought 
of  her  suffering.  He  hated  her  because  he  must 
be  kind  to  her. 


158  Erik  Dorn 

Meredith  was  ordering  the  dinner.  Dorn  stared 
out  over  the  room. 

Anna  was  watching  him  with  her  senses.  Why 
didn't  he  speak  to  her  as  Eddie  did  ?  Perhaps  he 
was  going  mad.  His  eyes  suffered.  He  looked  at 
things  and  seemed  to  hurt  himself  with  looking. 
She  kept  her  voice  vibrant  with  a  hope  of  joyous- 
ness.  "I  mustn't  give  in  to  the  nightmare.  It's 
only  imagining.  .  .  . " 

"Erik,  dearest,  do  eat  something.  Let  me  order 
for  you." 

Talk,  talk!  Dorn  listened.  Anna  was  saying, 
"Eddie  thinks  as  you  do  about  the  war,  Erik. 
Isn't  that  odd?"  Yes,  that  anybody  should  be 
able  to  think  as  he  did.  He  was  a  God.  A  super- 
God.  If  only  she  hated  him.  A  moment  of  hate 
in  her  eyes  would  be  heaven. 

"A  plain  case  of  accepting  an  evil  and  making 
the  best  of  it,"  laughed  Meredith.  "If  we  go  in 
all  I  ask  is  for  God's  sake  let's  keep  our  eyes  open 
and  not  slobber  around." 

Soft  remonstrances  from  Tesla  with  polite  refer- 
ences to  Wall  Street.  Food  on  platters.  An  air 
of  slight  excitement  with  Anna  directing  the  talk 
and  serving.  What  made  her  so  vivacious  ?  The 
sight  of  an  old  friend,  Meredith?  Meredith  .  .  . 
oh,  yes,  school  days,  long  ago.  A  wild  hope  un- 
folded itself  in  Dorn.  He  looked  at  the  man  anew. 
Fantastic  notion.  But  throw  them  together,  day 
and  night.  Cafes,  dancing,  music,  propinquity. 
He  was  her  type — kindly,  unselfish,  prosperously 


Dream  159 

elate  over  life.  He'd  help  her  on  with  her  wraps 
and  be  polite  over  doorways.  Perhaps.  He 
turned  to  his  wife  and  laughed  softly.  A  way  out. 
Give  her  to  the  man.  Give  her  away.  End  her 
love  for  him — her  damned,  torturing  love  that 
made  him  turn  over  inside  and  weep  at  night  when 
she  was  asleep ;  that  hounded  him  like  an  unclean 
memory.  It  was  only  her  love  that  made  him 
unclean.  He  looked  at  her  with  his  eyes  lighted. 

"Dancing  makes  a  difference,  doesn't  it,  dear? 
I'd  dance  myself,  only  my  legs  are  tired." 

He  smiled  as  he  spoke  with  the  unctuousness  of 
a  villain  administering  poison  in  a  bouquet  of 
roses.  But  a  way  to  get  rid  of  her  love.  He  didn't 
mind  her,  but  the  thing  in  her.  That  was  the  whole 
of  it.  Why  hide  from  it?  God,  if  he  could  only 
kill  it  he'd  be  free.  Otherwise  he'd  never  be  free. 
Even  if  he  went  away  there 'd  be  the  thought  of  her 
love.  .  .  .  Anna's  face  bloomed  with  joy  at  his 
words. 

"We'll  come  here  another  night  when  you're 
not  tired,  honey." 

' '  Yes, ' '  he  answered,  ' '  make  a  party  of  it.  How 
about  that,  Mr.  Meredith?" 

"Surest  thing." 

They  forgot  Tesla. 

"Oh,  Erik!"  She  embraced  his  arm  with 
both  her  hands.  Under  the  table  she  pressed  her 
thigh  trembling  against  him. 

The  music  from  the  platform  had  changed. 
Cornets,  banjos,  saxophones,  again.  The  boom 


160  Erik  Dorn 

and  jerk  of  voices  arose  as  if  in  greeting.  Fore- 
heads of  diners  glistening  with  a  fine  sweat. 
Sweat  on  the  backs  of  women's  necks,  on  their 
chins,  under  their  raised  arms;  gleaming  on  the 
cool  intervals  of  breasts,  white  and  bulbous  breasts 
peeping  out  of  a  secret  world. 

"If  I  may,  Anna  ..." 

Eddie  was  taking  her  away.  The  plot  was  work- 
ing. Dorn's  heart  warmed  toward  the  man.  A 
rescuer,  a  savior.  He  nodded  his  head  at  his  wife. 
He  must  make  it  look  as  if  he  were  sorry  it  wasn't 
he  going  to  dance  with  her ;  smile  with  proper  wist- 
fulness;  shake  his  head  sadly. 

Anna,  suddenly  beside  herself,  laughed,  and, 
leaning  over  touched  his  hair  quickly  with  her  lips. 
Damned  idiot,  he'd  overdone  it!  No.  Perhaps 
she  was  guilty.  Apologizing  for  impulses  away 
from  him  toward  Meredith?  He  sat  hoping  fever- 
ishly, caressing  a  diagnosis  as  if  he  could  establish 
it  by  repeating  it  over  and  over. 

Tesla  again,  this  time  on  art.  Art  of  the  pro- 
letaire.  Damn  the  proletaire  and  Tesla  both !  He 
had  a  plot  working  out.  Would  their  hands  touch, 
linger,  sigh  against  each  other?  Of  course.  They 
were  human — at  least  their  hands  were.  And 
then,  dances  every  night.  What  a  miserable 
banal  plot!  Another  day-dream.  Forget.  Be- 
yond Tesla's  soft  voice  ...  an  opening  and 
shutting  of  mouths  swollen  in  delicious  discom- 
forts. Look  at  them.  Identify  mouths.  Tell 
himself  the  angles  they  made.  People  .  .  . 


Dream  161 

people  ...  a  wriggling  of  bodies  in  a  growing 

satiety  of  tepid  lusts. 

"True  art,  Dorn,  is  something  beyond  decora- 
tion. Dreams  made  real.  But  the  right  kind  of 
dreams — things  that  touch  people.  The  other  art 
was  for  sick  men.  That  is — men  sickened  of  life. 
The  new  art  will  be  for  healthy  men,  men  reaching 
out  of  everything  about  them.  And  we  must 
give  them  bread,  soup,  and  art/' 

Yes,  that  might  as  well  be  true  as  anything 
else.  Anything  was  truth.  Anything  and  every- 
thing. Here  he  was  in  a  scene  that  had  no  relation 
to  him.  Yet  he  wasn't  detached. 

"Speaking  of  art,  Dorn,  we've  found  a  new 
artist,  a  wonder.  She's  going  to  do  some  things 
for  The  Cry.  I  got  her  interested.  I  must  tell 
Meredith  about  her.  Maybe  you  know  her — 
Rachel  Laskin.  One  of  her  things  is  coming  out 
in  the  next  issue.  I'll  send  you  a  copy." 

Coolly,  amazedly,  Dorn  thought,  "What  pre- 
posterous thing  makes  it  possible  for  this  man  to 
talk  of  Rachel  as  if  she  were  a  reality  .  .  .  like 
the  people  in  the  caf6?  To  him  she's  like  the 
people  in  the  caf6.  He  knows  her  like  the  people 
in  the  caf6." 

He  answered  carelessly,  "Oh,  yes;  Miss  Laskin. 
I  remember  her  well.  That  reminds  me:  you 
don't  happen  to  have  her  address?  I've  got  some 
things  she  left  at  the  office  we  can't  use." 

Tesla  dug  an  address  out  of  a  soiled  stack  of 
papers.  His  pockets  seemed  alive  with  soiled 


162  Erik  Dorn 

papers.  Rachel's  address  was  a  piece  of  soiled 
paper  like  any  other  piece  of  soiled  paper.  Mum- 
bling silently,  Dorn  sighed.  Just  in  time.  Anna 
again,  and  Meredith.  He  looked  at  them,  recalling 
his  plot.  Were  they  in  love?  Tesla — the  blun- 
dering idiot — "I  was  telling  Dorn  of  a  new  artist 
I've  found,  Eddie.  Rachel  Laskin,  a  sort  of 
Blake  and  Beardsley  and  something  else.  Thin 
lines,  screechy  things.  You'll  like  them." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  always  like  them,"  Meredith  smiled. 

And  Anna,  "Oh,  I  know  Rachel  Laskin  well. 
We're  old  friends.  She's  a  charming,  wonderful 
girl.  I  liked  her  so  much.  Where  is  she?" 

"In  New  York." 

"I'll  have  to  look  at  her  work,"  Meredith  added. 
"That's  me.  Always  looking  at  other  people's 
work  and  saying,  fine,  great,  and  never  knowing  a 
thing  about  it.  Ye  true  art  collector,  eh,  Emil?" 

Anna  went  on,  "Erik  was  amused  with  her. 
She  is  rather  odd,  you  know,  and  sort  of  wearing 
on  the  nerves.  But  you  can't  help  liking  her." 

An  amazing  description  of  a  face  of  stars. 
Dorn  smiled. 

Tesla  said,  "I  only  saw  her  once.  A  nervous 
girl,  and  she  seemed  upset." 

More  from  Anna:  "I  hope  she'll  come  back  to 
Chicago.  She  was  such  fun.  I  really  miss 
her.  ..." 

All  mad.  Babbling  of  Rachel.  Dorn  stared 
cautiously  about  him.  The  torment  in  him  be- 
came a  secret  swollen  beyond  its  proper  dimen- 


Dream  163 

sions.  They  would  look  at  him  now  and  under- 
stand that  he  was  not  Erik  Dorn,  but  somebody 
else  huddled  up,  burning  and  flopping  around  in- 
side. Love  was  a  virulent  form  of  idiocy.  It 
meant  nothing  to  people  outside.  Everything 
inside.  Anna  talking  about  Rachel  started  a 
panic  in  him.  She  was  playing  with  memories  of 
Rachel.  Do  you  remember  this?  and  that?  As 
if  he,  of  course,  had  forgotten  her.  Yes,  there  was 
an  " of  course ' '  about  it.  A  gruesome  " of  course." 
Gruesome — an  excellent  word.  It  meant  Anna 
petting  and  laughing  over  a  knife  that  was  to 
plunge  itself  into  her  heart.  When?  Soon  .  .  . 
soon.  He  had  an  address  copied  from  a  soiled 
piece  of  paper. 

They  bundled  out  of  the  cafe.  Waiters,  wraps. 
Eddie  helped  with  the  wraps.  Alien  streets,  dark 
waiting  buildings,  lights,  and  then  good-nights. 
The  moments  whirled  mysteriously  away.  What 
did  the  moments  matter?  He  was  going  to 
Rachel.  Ah!  When  had  he  decided  that?  He 
didn't  remember  reaching  any  decision  in  the 
matter. 

They  entered  a  cab  alone.  The  cab  rolled  away 
over  snow-packed  streets.  But  he  couldn't  leave 
Anna.  Yes  he  could.  Why  not?  No.  Impos- 
sible. A  faint  thought  like  a  storm  packed  into  a 
nutshell.  .  .  ."I  will." 

"You  were  wonderful  to-night,  Erik.  When  I 
see  you  with  other  men  I  just  thank  God  for  you." 

That  was  the  intolerable  thing — his  wonderful- 


164  Erik  Dorn 

ness,  his  damned  wonderful  ness.  It  existed  in 
her.  He  couldn't  leave  it  behind. 

Her  hand  lay  warm  in  his. 

"Kiss  me,  dearest!" 

He  kissed  her  and  laughed.  He  was  happy, 
then?  Oh,  yes,  he  was  going  to  Rachel.  Simple. 
Four  months  of  misery,  making  a  weeping  idiot 
out  of  himself.  And  now,  a  decision  had  been 
reached.  His  head  on  her  shoulder,  she  wanted 
it  so,  she  was  whispering  caresses  to  him.  This 
was  Anna.  But  it  would  soon  be  Rachel.  What 
difference  did  such  things  make?  One  woman, 
another  woman.  .  .  : . 

"You're  like  Jimmie  was." 

Happy  tears  filled  her  eyes,  to  be  noted  and 
remembered  now  that  he  was  going  to  Rachel. 
Jimmie  was  a  baby  who  had  died — his  baby. 
Offspring  was  a  more  humorous  word.  To  be 
noted  and  remembered.  What  a  dream! 

"I'm  so  happy,  Erik.  Everything  seems 
wonderful  again  when  you  smile  and  laugh  like  this. 
Your  cheeks  make  such  a  nice  little  curve  and 
your  head  on  my  shoulder,  where  it  belongs  .  .  . 
for  always  and  ever.  .  .  . " 

Let  her  sing.  He  could  stand  it.  What  did  it 
matter?  But  would  she  die  when  he  left.  He 
would  have  to  say  something  outright.  God, 
what  a  thing  to  say  outright.  Kill  not  only  her 
but  the  wonderful  selves  of  him  that  lived  in  her. 
That  didn't  mean  anything.  Anyway,  it  was 
rather  silly  to  waste  time  thinking.  .  .  .  To- 


Dream  165 

night,  after  the  ride  .  .  .  going  to  Rachel.*  He 
had  her  address.  He  would  walk  up,  ring  the 
bell.  She  would  answer  and  her  face  would  look 
in  surprise  at  him. 

"My  Erik,  my  own  sweet  little  one!" 

Dreaming  of  Jimmie,  of  him  and  Jimmie  to- 
gether. .  .  .  "I  don't  ever  want  to  move.  I 
want  us  to  keep  on  riding  like  this  forever  and 
ever.  .  .  ." 

Quite  exquisite  tragedy.  A  bit  crude.  But 
reality  was  always  rather  crude.  Crude  or  not, 
what  was  more  exquisite  than  happiness  laughing 
with  an  unseen  knife  moving  toward  its  heart? 
At  least  he  was  an  appreciative  audience.  With 
his  head  on  her  shoulder.  Why  not?  Life  de- 
manded that  one  be  an  audience  sometimes  .  .  . 
sit  back  and  listen  to  the  fates  whispering.  What 
a  ride!  Dark  waiting  houses  moving  by.  Seven 
years  together,  growing  closer  and  more  subtly 
together — yet  not  together  at  all.  Anyway,  he 
was  sick  of  living  that  way.  Even  without  Rachel 
.  .  .  a  mess.  Night  lies.  Passion  lies.  A  dirty 
business.  No,  not  that.  She  was  beautiful. 
Anna,  not  Rachel.  He  was  the  unclean  one. 

"Are  you  happy,  beloved?" 

"Yes." 

Lord,  what  an  answer  to  give  her.  A  prayer! 
Insufferably  exquisite  gods  of  drama — she  was 
praying.  Tears  rushing  from  her  eyes. 

"Sweet  Jesus  .  .  .  sweet  brother  Jesus  .  .  . 
thanks  for  everything.  Oh,  I've  been  so  unfaith- 


i66  Erik  Dorn 

ful.  Not  to  believe.  Thanks  for  my  wonderful 
Erik." 

He  must  kill  her,  swiftly,  before  she  could  know 
that  prayers  were  vain.  Easier  to  kill  her  body 
than  to  listen  to  this.  How,  though?  With 
his  hands  about  her  throat.  Murder  was  an 
old  business.  It  would  be  mercy  to  her.  But 
he  was  too  much  a  coward.  A  cowardly  audi- 
ence listening  to  words  ...  far  away  from 
him. 

"Beloved  .  .  v  darling.  Oh,  it's  so  good  to 
have  you  back  again." 

"Don't  talk."  He  put  his  arm  tightly  around 
her,  his  fingers  fumbling  at  her  bare  neck.  But 
that  was  only  a  pretense,  a  bit  of  insipid  melodrama 
— his  fingers.  He  was  an  actor  frightened  by  his 
part. 

The  taxi  driver  was  demanding  $4.50 — an  out- 
rage. 

"That's  too  much,  Erik." 

But  he  paid.  Should  he  tell  him  to  wait?  He 
would  need  him  in  a  few  minutes.  No,  too  cold- 
blooded to  tell  him  to  wait.  And  anyway,  Anna 
was  listening.  He  was  still  an  audience.  He 
would  jump  on  the  stage  and  begin  acting  later. 
Soon.  ;*. 

"Keep  the  change." 

"Thanks,  sir." 

An  insane  world  ...  a  polite  and  jovial  taxi- 
cab  driver  carrying  lunatics  about  the  streets. 

"Oh,  dear,  look!    Father's  sitting  up."     She 


Dream  167 

was  disappointed.  "And  I  wanted  to  kiss 'and 
hug  you  before  we  went  upstairs." 

Dorn  unlocked  the  door  of  his  house.  He  still 
had  a  house  and  could  unlock  its  door  without 
its  meaning  anything.  To-morrow  he  would  have 
no  house.  That  was  the  difference  >  between  to- 
day and  to-morrow.  The  old  man  would  be  there. 
That  would  make  it  easier.  He  shivered.  "I'm 
going  to  do  something  then".  .  .  .  This  was 
alarming. 

Anna's  arms  were  around  him  before  he  could 
remove  his  coat.  She  clung,  laughing,  kissing. 
Let  her.  .  .  .  "The  doomed  man  ate  a  hearty 
breakfast  of  ham  and  eggs  and  seemed  in  good 
spirits."  Reporters,  with  a  sense  of  the  dramatic, 
usually  wrote  it  that  way.  Ham  and  eggs  were 
a  symbol.  Should  he  mull  around  for  extenuating 
epigrams — a  fervid  rigmarole  on  the  mysteries 
and  ethics  of  life?  Or  strike  swift,  short?  .  .  . 
"Death  was  instantaneous.  The  drop  fell  at 
10:08  A.M.  sharp."  Always  sharp.  Damn  his 
reporters ! 

"Anna  ..." 

She  bloomed  at  the  sound  of  her  name. 

"I  want  to  talk,  Anna." 

"No,  let's  not  talk.  I'm  so  happy.  .  .  . 
Aren't  you  up  rather  late,  father?" 

Thank  God  she  was  getting  nervous.  One  can't 
kill  a  smile. 

"Anna,  come  to  me." 

An  old  phrase  of  their  love-making.     He  hadn't 


i68  Erik  Dorn 

meant  to  use  it.  But  phrases  that  have  been  used 
for  seven  years  get  so  they  say  themselves.  She 
moved  quickly  toward  him.  His  father — smiling 
beyond  her  shoulder.  Now  for  the  slaughter.  .  .  . 

"Do  you  love  me  enough  to  make  me  happy, 
Anna?" 

"I  would  give  my  life  for  you." 

He  was  deplorably  calm — too  calm.  His  eyes 
were  looking  at  books  on  shelves,  at  chairs,  at 
pictures  on  the  walls,  as  if  everything  was  of  an 
identical  importance. 

"I  know,  but  that  isn't  it." 

"What  then,  Erik?" 

He  couldn't  say  it.  Particularly  with  his 
father  smiling — an  irritating  old  man  who  would 
never  die.  Should  he  fall  at  her  feet  and  whimper  ? 
He  couldn't.  Her  face  was  his,  her  eyes  his.  It 
wasn't  leaving  Anna.  Himself,  though.  Yes, 
he  was  confronting  himself.  Seven  years  of  selves. 
All  wonderful.  Everything  he  had  said  and  done 
for  seven  years  lived  in  Anna.  So  he  must  kill 
seven  years  of  himself  with  a  phrase.  No.  Yet 
he  was  talking  on.  It  soothed  him,  untight ened 
the  agony  in  him. 

"Listen,  Anna.  I  can't  tell  you,  but  I  must. 
My  words  circle  away  from  me.  They  run  away 
from  what  I  want  to  tell  you.  Anna  ...  I 
must  go  away — leave  you." 

Tears  in  his  eyes,  over  his  face.  His  voice, 
warm,  blurring  with  tears.  He  choked,  paused. 

"Erik. 


Dream  169 

A  white  sound.     Something  bursting. 

"If  I  stay,  I'll  go  mad." 

"No  ...  no  ...  Erik  ..." 

Still  white  sounds,  only  whiter.  Blank  sounds, 
caused  by  speechlessness.  Sounds  of  speech- 
lessness. 

"I  may  come  back,  if  you'll  take  me  back 
sometime.  .  .  *" 

A  man  was  always  an  imbecile.  Imbecility  is  a 
trademark.  But  there  were  no  sounds  now.  His 
eyes  tried  to  turn  away  from  her.  A  face  had 
ceased  to  live  and  give  forth  sounds.  He  remained 
looking  at  it.  A  cold,  emptied  face,  like  a  pic- 
ture frame  with  a  picture  recently  torn  out  of 
it. 

"Anna,  for  God's  sake,  hate  me.  Hate  me. 
Loathe  me  the  rest  of  your  life.  I've  lied  and  lied 
to  you — nothing  but  lies.  .  .  . .  No,  that's  not 
true.  But  now  it  is.  Think  of  me  as  vile  when  I 
go  away.  .;  .  .  Otherwise  .  .  ." 

Tears  blubbered  out  of  him. 
...    .   "otherwise   I'll    die    thinking    of  you. 
Don't  look  at  me  that  way?    Yell  at  me.   .    .    . 
You've  known  it.     I  can't  help  it.   ...     It's 
something.     I  can't  help  it." 

Behind  this  voice  he  thought : ' '  It's  not  me  alone. 
Nights  of  love  .  .  .  kisses  .  .  .  Jimmie  .  .  . 
seven  years.  .  .  .  Little  things.  Oh,  God, 
little  things.  We're  all  leaving  her — pulling  our- 
selves out  of  her." 

"Where  are  you  going,  my  son?" 


*7°  Erik  Dorn 

Could  he  lie  now?  Yes,  anything  that  made  it 
easier. 

"Nowhere.  Anywhere.  I  must  go.  Other- 
wise 1 11  choke  to  death.  Take  care  of  her.  There's 
money.  All  hers.  1 11  write  later  about  it.  Anna 
.  .  .  don't  please." 

The  thing  was  a  botch.  Wrong,  all  wrong. 
But  that  didn't  matter.  His  coat  and  hat  mat- 
tered more  than  phrases.  Looking  for  a  coat  and 
hat  when  he  should  be  winding  up  the  scene 
properly.  These  were  preposterous  banalities 
that  distinguished  life,  unedited,  from  melodrama. 
Where  was  his  hat?  His  hat  .  .  .  hat  .  .  . 
Life,  Fate,  Tragedy  had  mislaid  his  insufferable 
hat.  Ah  ...  on  the  floor. 

She  was  standing  staring  at  him.  Would  she 
die  on  her  feet?  Quick,  before  the  shriek.  It  was 
coming  ...  a  madness  that  would  frighten  him 
forever  if  he  heard  it.  What  a  scoundrel  he  was ! 
Why  deny  it  ?  But  in  a  few  years  he  would  be 
dead  and  no  longer  a  scoundrel,  and  all  this  so 
much  forgotten  dust. 

"Write  to  us,  my  son.     And  come  back  soon." 

He  closed  the  door  softly  behind  him  and 
started  to  walk.  But  his  legs  ran.  It  had  been 
easy  .  .  .  easy.  He  stumbled,  sprawled  upon 
the  iced  pavement,  bruising  his  face.  He  picked 
himself  up  unaware  that  he  had  stopped  running. 
Night,  houses,  streets,  what  matter?  In  a  few 
years — dust.  But  he  had  left  in  time.  That  was 
the  important  thing.  Another  minute  and  he 


Dream  171 

would  have  heard  her.  A  terrible  unheard  sound. 
He  had  left  it  behind.  He  had  left  her  unfinished. 
Why  was  he  running?  Oh,  yes — Anna. 

He  paused  and  held  his  eyes  from  staring  back 
at  his  house.  His  eyes  would  pull  him  back  to  the 
door.  Little  things — oh,  the  little  things  made 
hurts.  He  must  turn  a  corner.  Light  does  not 
travel  around  corners. 

Gone.  The  house  was  gone  with  all  its  little 
things.  One  jerk  and  he  had  ripped  away.  .  .  . 

He  walked  slowly.  A  coldness  suddenly  fell 
into  him.  Rachel.  He  had  forgotten  about 
Rachel.  Never  a  thought  for  Rachel.  Disloyal. 
Where  was  she — the  mirror  of  stars?  Nowhere. 
He  didn't  love  her.  Was  he  insane?  He  loved 
Anna,  not  Rachel.  He  must  go  back.  The  thing 
was  lopsided — pretense.  He'd  been  pretending  he 
was  in  love  with  Rachel.  Love  .  .  .  schoolboy 
business.  Mirror  of  stars!  Something  scribbled 
on  a  valentine.  That  was  love.  Rachel.  No.  .  .  . 
There  was  another  face.  Cold,  emptied — a  circle 
of  deaths.  Anna's  face.  But  he  must  remember 
Rachel  because  he  was  going  to  Rachel — remember 
something  about  her.  Say  her  name  over  and 
over.  But  that  wasn't  Rachel.  That  was  a 
word  like  .  .  .  like  pocketbook.  Something 
about  her.  .  .  . 

Ah !  yes.  Her  coat  lying  in  the  snow.  He  sighed 
with  a  determined  effort  at  sadness  .  .  .  her 
little  coat  in  the  snow ! 


PART  III 

WINGS 


173 


CHAPTER  I 

BOOM,  boom,"  said   the  city  of   New  York, 
"we  have  gone  to  war!" 

And  all  the  other  cities,  big  and  little,  said  a 
boom-boom  of  their  own.  A  mighty  nation  had 
gone  to  war. 

A  time  of  singing.  Songs  on  the  lips  of  crowds. 
Lights  in  their  eyes.  High-pitched,  garbled  words, 
brass  bands,  flags,  speeches.  .  .  .  Mine  eyes  have 
seen  the  coming  of  the  glory  of  the  Lord  but  we 
don't  want  the  Bacon,  All  we  Want  is  a  Piece  of 
the  Rhine  (d).  ...  A  brass  monkey  playing 
' '  Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee  "  on  a  red  banjo.  .  .  . 
Allans,  les  enfants  .  .  .  lejour  de  gloire  est  arrive! 
You  tell  'em,  kid!  Store  fronts,  cabarets,  hotel 
lobbies,  sign-boards,  office  buildings  all  become 
shining  citadels  of  righteousness  beleaguered  by 
the  powers  of  darkness.  Newspaper  headlines 
exploding  like  firecrackers  on  the  corners.  A 
bonfire  of  faces  in  the  streets.  A  bonfire  of  flags 
above  the  streets. 

Boom,  boom!  .  .  .  societies  for  the  relief 
of  martyred  Belgium.  Societies  for  Rolling  Cigar- 
ettes, Bandages,  Exterminating  Hun  Spies,  Ex- 
terminating Yellow  Dogs  and  Slackers.  .  .  . 
Wah,  don't  let  anybody  be  a  slacker!  A  slacker 

175 


176  Erik  Dorn 

is  a  dirty  dog  who  does  what  I  wanna  do  but  am 
afraid  to  do.  Who  lies  down.  Who  won't  stand 
up  on  his  hind  legs  and  cheer  when  he's  supposed 
to.  .  .  .  Societies  for  Knitting  Sweaters,  Giving 
Bazaars,  Spotting  Hun  Propaganda.  A  bonfire 
of  committees,  communes,  Jabberwocks,  clubs, 
Green  Walruses,  False  Whiskers,  Snickersnees, 
War  Boards,  and  Eagles  Shrieking  from  their 
Mountain  Heights  with  an  obligato  by  the  Avon 
Comedy  Four — I'm  a  Jazz  Baby.  .  A  , 

A  mighty  nation  had  gone  to  war.  Humpty 
Dumpty  and  the  March  Hare  wheeled  out  the 
Home  Guards.  Said  the  Debutante  to  her 
Soldier  Boy  in  the  moonlight,  "To  Hell  with  the 
chaperone,  War  is  War.  .  .  ."  Somebody  lost 
Eighty  Hundred  Billion  Dollars  trying  to  build 
aeroplanes  out  of  Flypaper  and  a  new  kind  of 
Cement.  And  the  Press,  slapping  Fright  Wig 
No.  7  on  its  bald  head,  announced  to  the  Four 
Winds,  "...  .  once  more  glory,  common 
cause,  sacrifice,  welded  peoples  of  America, 
invincible  host,  lay  common  blood,  altar 
liberty,  sacred  principle,  government  of 
the  people  by  the  people  for  the  people  perish 
earth"  .  .  .  And  the  Pulpits  obliged  with  an 
"O  God  who  art  in  Heaven  girthed  in  shining 
armor  before  Thee  Thy  cause  Liberty 
Humanity  Democracy  Thy  blessing  in- 
spire light  of  sacrifice  brave  women  and 
hero  men  give  us  strength  O  Lord  not 
falter  see  way  of  Righteousness  stern  hearts 


Wings  177 

bear  great  burden  Thou  has  given  us  carry  on 
till  powers  of  darkness  routed  virtue  again 
triumphant  Thy  will  done  on  earth  as  it  is 
in  Heaven.  *»  ,  ." 

And  the  soldiers  entraining  for  the  cantonments 
— clerks  and  salesmen,  rail-splitters  and  window- 
washers  with  the  curve  of  youth  on  their  faces — 
the  soldiers  said,  "Whasamatter  with  Uncle  Sam? 
Rah  .  .  .  Wow  .  .  .  Good-bye  .  .  .  We'll 
treat  'em  rough  .  .  .  ashes  to  ashes  and  dust  to 
dust  if  the  Camels  don't  get  you  the  Fatimas 
must.  .  .  ."  And  in  the  cantonments  the  sol- 
diers said,  "  .  .  .  this  lousy  son  of  a  badwoman 
of  a  shavetail  can't  put  nothin'  over  on  me  .  .  . 
say  .  .  .  oh,  I  hate  to  get  up  in  the  morning, 
oh,  how  I  long  to  remain  in  bed.  .  .  .  "  And  in 
France  the  soldiers  sang  ".  .  .  there  are  smiles 
that  make  you  happy  there  are  smiles  that  make 
you  sad.  .  .  .  The  Knights  of  Columbus  are 
all  right  but  the  Y.  M.  C.  A.  is  a  son  of  a  badwoman 
of  a  grafting  mess.  .  .  .  " 

"Yanks  Land  in  France  .  j-j  .  Yanks  in  Big 
Battle  .  .  .  Yanks  Sink  Submarines"  .  .  . 
bang  banged  the  headlines.  Don't  eat  meat  on 
Tuesdays  and  Thursdays.  Help  the  Red  Cross 
buy  Doughnuts  for  the  Salvation  Army  and  keep 
an  eye  on  Your  Austrian  Janitor.  .  .  .  Ele- 
phants, tom-cats,  and  chorus-girls;  a  hallelujah 
with  a  red  putty  nose,  Seventy-six  Thousand 
Press  Agents  Walking  on  their  Hands,  Jab- 
berwocks,  Horned  Toads,  and  Prima  Donnas 


1 78  Erik  Dorn 

.    .    .    here    comes   the    Liberty    Loan    Drive 

A  mighty  nation  had  gone  to  war.    Boom !  Boom ! 

And  in  a  moon-lighted  room  overlooking  a  fan- 
fare of  roofs,  Erik  Dorn  whispered  one  night  to 
Rachel, 

"You  have  given  me  wings !" 


CHAPTER  II 

rME  to  get  up.     An  oblong  of  sunlight  squeez- 
ing through  beneath  the  drawn  blind  and 
slapping  itself  boldly  on  the  gloomy  carpet  .    .    . 
"shame   on   all   sleepy   heads.    Here's   another 
day.  ..." 

Rachel  smiled  as  she  opened  her  eyes.  She 
lay  quietly,  smiling.  It  was  as  it  was  yesterday — 
as  the  day  before.  One  opened  one's  eyes  and  life 
came  quickly  back  with  a  "Hello,  here  I  am — 
where  you  left  me."  So  one  lay,  fearful  to  move, 
like  a  cup  of  wine  that  is  too  full  and  mustn't  be 
joggled  with  even  a  kick  at  the  bed  sheets. 

One  lay  and  smiled.     Thoughts  and  stockings  < 
side  by  side   somewhere  on  the  floor.     Put   on 
stockings  in  a  minute.     Put  on  thoughts  ir»  a 
minute.     Dress    oneself    up    in    phrases,    hats, 
skyscrapers,  and  become  somebody. 

Rachel's  eyes  livened  slowly.  Pleasant  to  be 
nobody — a  bodyless,  meaningless  smile  awake  in 
the  morning.  Opened  eyes  on  a  pillow.  A  deep, 
deep  sigh  on  a  pillow.  An  oblong  of  sunshine  on 
the  floor.  A  happy  bed.  A  happy  ceiling.  A 
happy  door.  Nothing  else.  Nobody  else. 

But  a  hat,  a  blue  straw  hat  with  a  jauntily  curved 
brim,  sat  on  a  candlestick  and  winked.  Which 

179 


i8o  Erik  Dorn 

reminded  one  that  one  was  alive.  After  all,  one 
was  somebody.  Time  to  get  up.  All  the  king's 
horses  and  all  the  king's  men  demanded  of  one  to 
arise  and  get  dressed  and  go  out  and  be  somebody. 
Rachel  kicked  at  the  sheets.  Protest  against  the 
Decrees  of  Destiny.  ".  .  .  those  are  my  feet 
kicking.  Hello,  here  I  am." 

There  was  a  note  on  the  pillow  adjacent.  It 
read : ' '  At  eight  o  'clock  to-night  I  '11  return .  Please 
don't  get  run  over  in  the  streets.  ERIK." 

Well,  why  not  kiss  the  note,  embrace  the  pillow 
and  sigh  ?  Why  try  to  be  anything  but  an  idiot  ? 
.  .  .  "Yes,  Mr.  Erik  Dorn,  I  will  be  very  careful 
and  not  let  myself  get  run  over  in  the  streets." 

Rachel's  head  fell  on  the  adjacent  pillow  and 
she  lay  whispering,  "I  love  you,"  until  the  sound 
of  her  voice  caused  her  to  laugh.  .  .  .  Time  to 
get  up.  Dear  me !  She  closed  her  eyes  and  rolled 
'herself  out  of  bed.  .  .  .  "Ouch!  ..."  She 
sat  up  on  the  floor,  legs  extended,  and  stared  at  a 
shoe.  Alas!  a  shoe  is  a  crestfallen  memory.  A 
crestfallen  yesterday  lurks  in  old  shoes.  Shoes 
are  always  crestfallen.  Even  the  shoes  of  lovers 
waiting  under  the  bed  weep  and  snivel  all  night. 
But  why  sit  naked  on  the  floor,  stark,  idiotically 
naked  on  the  floor  with  legs  thrust  out  like  a  sur- 
prised illustration  in  La  Vie  Parisienne  and  toes 
curling  philosophically  toward  a  shoe?  .  .  .  "I'll 
do  as  I  please.  Very  well." 

Sanity  demanded  clothes.  But  a  sudden 
memory  started  her  to  her  feet.  She  stood  up 


Wings  181 

lightly  and  hurried  toward  the  large  oval  mirror. 
.  .  '."'  "Your  breasts  are  white  birds  dreaming 
under  the  stars.  Your  body  is  like  the  Queens  of 
China  parading  through  the  moon.  .  .  .  " 

She  looked  at  herself  in  the  mirror.  Yes.  But 
why  not  the  Emperors  of  Afghanistan  Walking  on 
Their  Hands?  Thus  .  .  .  "my  Body  is  like 
the  Presidents  of  the  United  States  Riding  Horse- 
back. ..." 

She  placed  her  hands  on  her  slim  hips  and  taut- 
ened her  figure.  When  Erik  was  away  all  one 
could  do  was  play  with  the  things  he  had  said. 
Was  she  as  beautiful  as  he  thought?  A  joyous- 
ness  flowed  through  her.  The  mirror  gave  her 
back  a  memory  of  Erik.  She  was  a  memory  of 
Erik. 

When  she  looked  at  herself  in  the  mirror 
she  saw  only  something  that  lived  in  the  admiring 
eyes  of  Erik.  Beautiful  legs,  beautiful  body  and 
"eyes  like  the  courts  of  Solomon  at  night,  like 
circles  of  incense. "...  All  were  memories  of 
Erik. 

She  whispered  softly  to  the  figure  in  the  mirror, 
"Erik  knows  your  eyes.  They  are  the  beckon- 
ing hands  of  dreams."  Thus  Erik  spoke  of  them. 
"I  mustn't  laugh  at  myself.  I  am  more  beautiful 
than  anything  or  anybody  in  the  whole  world. 
There  is  nobody  as  beautiful  as  the  woman  Erik 
Dorn  loves." 

If  she  were  only  in  a  forest  now  where  she  could 
run,  jump  in  the  air,  scream  at  birds,  and  end  by 


i82  Erik  Dorn 

hurling  herself  into  dim,  cool  water.     Instead,  an 
absurd  business  of  fastening  her  silk  slip. 

She  seated  herself  on  the  bed,  her  stockings 
hanging  from  her  hand,  and  fell  again  to  listening 
to  Erik.  His  word  made  an  endless  echo  in  her 
head.  .  .  .  "Perins  a  droll  species.  A  sort  of 
indomitable  ass.  Refuses  to  succumb  to  his  in- 
telligence. If  you  think  he's  in  love  with  your 
Mary  you're  a  downright  imbecile.  The  man 
adjusts  his  passions  to  his  phrases  as  neatly  as  a 
pretty  woman  pulling  on  her  stockings.  .  .  . " 
She  didn't  like  Erik  to  refer  to  pretty  women  pull- 
ing on  their  stockings.  What  an  idiot!  If  Erik 
wanted  to  he  could  go  out  and  help  all  the  pretty 
women  in  New  York  pull  on  their  stockings.  As 
if  that  had  anything  to  do  with  their  love.  Some- 
body else's  stockings!  A  scornful  exclamation 
point.  Now  her  skirt,  waist,  shoes,  and  hat,  and 
she  was  somebody. 

Somebody  walking  out  of  a  house,  in  a  street, 
looking,  smiling,  swinging  along.  The  beautiful 
one,  the  desired  one  out  for  a  promenade,  embar- 
rassed somehow  by  the  fact  that  she  was  alive,  that 
people  looked  at  her  and  street-cars  made  frowning 
overtures  to  her.  This  was  not  her  world.  Yet 
she  must  move  around  in  it  as  if  she  were  a  fatu- 
ous part  of  its  grimacings  and  artifices.  Shop 
windows  that  snickered  into  her  eyes  .  .  . 
"shoes  $8  to-day.  Hats,  $10.50.  .  .  .  Travel- 
ing-cases only  $19.  .  .  . "  She  must  be  polite 
and  recognize  its  existence  by  composing  her 


Wings  183 

features,  wearing  a  hat,  saying  "pardon  me"  when 
she  trod  on  anyone's  feet  or  bumped  an  elbow 
into  a  stomach.  A  stranger's  world — gentlemen 
in  straw  hats ;  gentlemen  in  proud  uniforms  march- 
ing off  to  war;  a  fretwork  of  gentlemen,  signs, 
windows,  hats,  and  automobiles  and  a  lot  of  other 
things,  all  continually  tangling  themselves  up  in 
front  of  her  nose.  A  city  pouring  itself  out  of  the 
morning  sky  and  landing  with  a  splash  and  a  leap 
of  windows  around  her  feet.  Thus  the  beautiful 
one,  out  for  a  promenade  and  moving  excitedly 
through  a  superfluous  world. 

She  plunged  into  a  perilous  traffic  knot  and 
emerged  unscathed.  But  that  was  wasting  time. 
Time — another  superfluous  element,  a  tick-tock 
for  the  little  wingless  ones  to  crawl  by.  Then 
she  remembered — a  moon-lighted  room  .  .  . 
1 '  you  have  given  me  wings ! ' '  Her  thought  traced 
itself  excitedly  about  the  memory.  This  had 
happened.  That  had  been  said.  Yesterday,  to- 
day and  to-morrow — all  the  same.  Memories 
mixing  with  dreams.  Wings!  Yes,  wings  that 
beat,  beat  on  the  air  and  left  one  moving  behind 
a  blue  dress,  under  a  jaunty  hat  like  all  other 
jaunty  hats.  But  something  else  moved  else- 
where. There  were  two  worlds  for  her.  But  not 
for  Erik.  One  world  for  Erik.  Where  would  his 
wings  take  him?  Beyond  life  there  was  still  life. 
A  wall  of  life  that  never  came  to  an  end  or  a  top. 
That  was  the  one  world  for  Erik.  Hurl  himself 
against  it,  higher,  higher.  Soar  till  the  super- 


184  Erik  Dorn 

fluous  ones  became  little  dots  on  a  ribbon  of 
streets. 

Tears  came  into  her  eyes.  The  strange  world 
drifted  away — a  flutter  of  faces.  A  silence  seemed 
to  descend  upon  the  streets  as  if  their  roaring 
were  not  a  noise  but  the  opened  mouth  of  a  dumb 
man.  Erik  had  come  to  her.  Arm  in  arm,  smil- 
ing tears  at  him  she  walked  through  the  spinning 
crowd  in  a  path  hidden  from  all  snickering  windows 
and  revolving  faces.  A  dream  walk.  These  were 
her  wings. 

Consciousness  returned.  She  rubbed  her  eyes 
with  the  knuckles  of  her  hands  and  laughed  softly. 
She  must  not  excite  herself  with  hysterical  worries. 
Wondering  about  Erik.  There  had  been  days 
when  she  had  moved  like  a  corpse  through  the 
streets,  a  corpse  always  finding  new  and  further 
deaths.  Death  days  with  her  heart  tearing  at 
empty  hours,  with  time  like  a  disease  in  her  veins. 
Days  before  he  had  come.  Now  all  life  was  in 
her.  Why  invent  new  causes  of  grief?  She  must 
talk  sane  words  to  herself.  But  the  sane  words 
bowed  a  polite  adieu  and  putting  on  their  hats 
walked  away  and  sat  down  behind  the  snickering 
windows.  .  .  .  Other  words  arrived  quickly, 
breathlessly.  .  .  .  There  was  something  in  his 
eyes  that  frightened,  something  that  did  not  rest 
with  her  but  seemed  to  reach  on  further.  In  the 
midst  of  their  ecstasies  his  eyes,  burning,  un- 
satisfied, making  her  suddenly  chill  with  fear, 
would  whisper  to  her,  " There  is  something  more." 


Wings  185 

In  each  other's  arms  it  was  she  who  came  to  an 
ending,  not  he.  His  kisses,  his  "I  love  you," 
were  the  clawing  of  fingers  high  up  on  the  wall. 
For  her  they  were  the  obliteration,  the  ending 
beyond  life. 

The  street  unraveled  itself  about  her  with  a  bang 
of  crowds  and  a  whirl  of  flags,  a  zigzag  of  eyes  like 
innumerable  little  tongues  licking  at  the  air.  The 
tension  of  her  thought  relaxed.  She  remembered 
that  when  he  walked  in  streets  he  was  always 
making  pictures.  She  thought  of  his  words.  .  .  . 
"It's  a  part  of  me  that  love  hasn't  changed,  except 
to  increase.  A  pestiferous  sanity  keeps  demand- 
ing of  me  that  I  translate  incoherent  things  into 
words.  The  city  keeps  handing  itself  to  me  like 
a  blank  piece  of  paper  to  write  on.  And  I  scribble 
away." 

She  would  do  as  he  did,  scribble  words  over 
faces  and  buildings  as  she  walked.  The  city  was 
a  ...  a  swarm  of  humanity.  Swarm  of  hu- 
manity. My  God,  had  she  lost  the  power  of 
thought?  Imagine  telling  Erik,  "A  crowd  of 
people  I  saw  to-day  reminded  me  of  a  swarm  of 
humanity."  There  was  no  sanity  in  her  demand- 
ing words.  Because  there  was  no  incoherence 
outside.  Things  weren't  incoherent  but  non- 
existent. The  city  was  no  mystery.  There  was 
nothing  to  translate.  It  was  an  alien,  superfluous 
world.  That  was  the  difference  between  them. 
To  Erik  it  was  not  alien  or  superfluous.  Even  in 
their  ecstasies  there  was  still  a  world  for  him,  like 


Erik  Dorn 


some  mocking  rival  laughing  at  him,  saying,  '  You 
can  embrace  Rachel.  But  what  can  you  do  to 
me  ?  See  if  you  can  embrace  me  and  swallow  me 
with  a  kiss.  ..." 

That's  why  he  stayed  away  till  eight  o'clock, 
moving  among  men,  writing,  talking,  doing  work 
on  the  magazine.  But  there  was  nothing  for  her 
to  do.  She  inhabited  a  world  named  Erik  Dorn, 
a  perfect  world  in  which  there  was  no  room  even 
for  thought. 

Erik  had  written-  her  a  note  from  the  office  once 
.  .  .  '  'my  heart  is  a  dancing  star  above  the  graves  of 
your  absence.  .  .  ."  But  that  was  almost  a  lie 
because  it  was  true  only  for  one  moment.  Things 
occupied  him  that  could  not  occupy  her. 

Another  block.  Four  more  blocks.  Noisy 
aliveness  of  streets  that  meant  nothing.  She 
thought,  "People  look  at  me  and  envy  me  because 
I'm  in  a  hurry  as  if  I  had  somewhere  important  to 
go.  People  envy  everybody  who  is  in  a  hurry  to 
get  somewhere.  Because  for  them  there  are  no 
destinations  —  only  halting  places  for  their  drift- 
ing. Perhaps  I  should  go  home  and  paint  some- 
thing so  as  to  have  it  to  show  him  when  he  comes  ; 
or  sit  down  somewhere  and  think  up  words  to  give 
him.  I  won't  be  able  to  talk  to-night.  I  must 
just  be  ...  without  thinking  ...  of  any- 
thing but  him.  Why  doesn't  he  sometimes  men- 
tion Anna?  Is  he  afraid  it  might  offend  me  to 
remind  me  of  Anna?  Would  it?  No.  Many 
people  live  in  the  world.  Another  woman  lived 


Wings  187 


in  Erik  Dorn  and  he  was  unaware  of  her  as  the 
sky  is  unaware  of  me.  And  she  died.  But  she 
isn't  dead.  Only  her  world  died.  Her  sky  fell 
down.  .  .  -." 

Tears  came  to  Rachel's  eyes.  Her  hands 
clenched.  .  .  .  "Anna,  Anna,  forgive  me!  I'm 
so  happy.  You  must  understand.  .  .  . " 

She  felt  a  revulsion.  She  had  thought  some- 
thing weak,  silly.  "Who  is  Anna  that  I  must 
apologize  to  her?  A  woman.  A  woman  Erik 
never  loved.  Do  I  ask  apologies  of  her  for  having 
lived  with  him — kissed  him?" 

There  was  a  luncheon  appointment  with  Mary 
James.  Mary  would  bring  a  man.  Perrin,  may- 
be. Mary  always  brought  a  man.  Without  a  man, 
Mary  was  incomplete.  With  a  man  she  was  even 
more  incomplete.  Mary  insisted  on  lunching. 
Rachel  hurried  toward  the  rendezvous.  She 
thought, ' '  People  can  make  me  do  anything  now. 
Mary  or  anybody  else.  I  was  able  once  to  walk  over 
them.  Now  they  lead  me  around.  Because 
nothing  matters.  And  people  don't  sicken  me 
with  their  faces  and  talk.  They're  like  noises  in 
another  room  that  one  hears,  sometimes  sees,  but 
never  listens  to  or  looks  at.  They  ask  questions. 
And  you  sit  in  a  secret  world  beyond  them  with 
your  hat  and  dress,  properly  attentive." 

Here  was  the  hotel  for  the  rendezvous.  Mary 
out  of  breath, 

"Rachel!  Hello!  Wait  a  minute.  Whee! 
What  do  you  think  you're  doing?  Pulling  off  a 


i88  Erik  Dorn 

track  meet  or  something?  Been  tryin'  to  catch 
up  to  you  for  an  hour." 

Rachel  looked  at  her.  She  was  a  golden-haired 
monkey  full  of  words. 

"Charlie's  at  the  Red  Cat."  A  man.  "We're 
going  to  lunch  there.  What  in  God's  name's  the 
matter  with  you?"  A  pause  in  the  thick  of  the 
crowd.  "Heavens,  Rachel,  are  you  well?  I 
mean.  ..." 

Rachel  laughed.  If  you  laughed  people  thought 
you  were  making  answers. 

They  arrived  at  the  Red  Cat.  Small  red  circu- 
lar tables.  Black  walls.  A  painstaking  non- 
conformity about  the  decoration.  A  sprinkling 
of  diners  saying,  "We  eat,  but  not  amid  normal 
surroundings.  We  are  emancipated  from  normal 
surroundings.  It  is  extremely  important  that  we 
eat  off  little  red  circular  tables  instead  of  big  brown 
square  tables  in  order  to  conform  with  our  mission, 
which  is  that  of  non-conformity." 

Mary  led  the  way  to  a  table  occupied  by  a  tall, 
broad-shouldered  youth  with  a  crooked  nose  and 
humorously  indignant  eyes.  He  resembled  a 
football  player  who  has  gone  into  the  advertising 
business  and  remained  a  football  player.  Mary 
referred  to  him  with  a  possessive  "Charlie." 

Charlie  said,  "Why  do  you  always  pick  out  these 
joints  to  eat  in,  Mary?  Been  sittin'  here  for  ten 
minutes  scared  to  death  one  of  these  females 
would  begin  crawlin'  around  on  the  walls.  There's 
a  waiter  here  with  long  hair  and  two  teeth  missin' 


Wings  189 

that  I'm  goin'  to  bust  in  the  nose  if  he  doesn't 
stop." 

" Stop  what,  Charlie?' 

"Oh,  lookin'  at  me.   .    .    ." 

The  luncheon  progressed.  Olives,  watery  soup, 
delicate  sandwiches.  .  .'  . 

An  air  of  breathlessness  about  Rachel  seemed  to 
discommode  her  friends.  Charlie,  piqued  at  her 
inattentiveness,  essayed  a  volubility  foreign  to  his 
words.  He  was  not  so  "nice  a  young  man"  as 
Hazlitt.  But  he  boasted  among  friends  that  girls 
had  had  a  chance  with  him.  They  could  stay 
decent  if  they  insisted  but  he  let  them  understand 
it  wouldn't  do  them  any  good  so  far  as  marrying 
them  was  concerned  because  he  wasn't  out  for 
matrimony.  There  was  too  much  to  see. 

Mary  interspersed  her  eating  with  quotations 
from  advanced  literature,  omitting  the  quotation 
marks.  A  slim,  shining-haired  girl — men  adored 
her  hair — pretty-faced,  silken-ankled,  Mary  had  a 
mission  in  life.  It  was  the  utilizing  of  vivacious 
arguments  on  art,  God,  morals,  economics,  as 
exciting  preliminaries  for  hand-holding  and  kissing 
with  eyes  closed,  lips  murmuring,  "Ah,  what  is 
life?"  Technically  a  virgin,  but  devoted  ex- 
clusively to  the  satisfying  of  her  sex — a  satisfying 
that  did  not  demand  the  completion  of  intercourse 
but  the  stimulus  of  its  suggestion,  Mary  utilized 
the  arts  among  which  she  dabbled  as  a  bed  for 
artificial  immoralities.  In  this  bed  she  had  man- 
aged for  several  years  to  remain  an  adroitly  chaste 


190  Erik  Dorn 

courtesan.  Her  pride  was  almost  concentrated 
in  her  chastity.  She  guarded  it  with  a  precocious 
skill,  parading  it  through  conversation,  hinting 
slyly  of  it  when  its  existence  seemed  for  the  mo- 
ment to  have  become  unimportant.  Her  chastity, 
in  fact,  had  become  under  skillful  management  the 
most  immoral  thing  about  her.  She  had  learned 
the  trick  of  exciting  men  with  her  virginity. 

The  thing  had  become  for  her  an  unconscious 
business.  After  several  years  of  it  she  evolved 
into  a  flushed,  nervous  victim  of  her  own  tech- 
nique. She  managed,  however,  to  preserve  her 
self-esteem  by  looking  upon  the  perversion  of  her 
normal  sexual  instincts  into  a  species  of  verbal 
nymphomania  as  an  indication  of  a  superior  soul 
state.  Radical  books  excited  her  mind  as  ordi- 
narily her  body  might  have  been  excited  by  radical 
caresses.  Amateur  theatricals,  publicity  work  for 
charitable  organizations,  an  allowance  from  her 
home  in  Des  Moines,  provided  her  with  a  practical 
background. 

Charlie  was  her  latest  catch.  Later  he  would 
hold  her  hand,  slip  an  arm  around  her,  press  her 
breasts  gently  and  with  a  proper  unconsciousness 
of  what  he  was  doing,  and  she  would  let  him  kiss 
her  .  .  .  while  music  played  somewhere  .  .  . 
preferably  on  a  pier.  Then  she  would  murmur 
as  he  paused,  out  of  breath,  "Ah,  what  is  life, 
Charlie  ? "  And  if  instead  of  playing  the  game  de- 
cently Charlie  abandoned  pretense  and  made  an 
adventurous  sortie,  there  would  ensue  the  usual 


Wings 


denouement  .  .  .  "  Charlie  .  .  .  Oh,  how 
could  you?  I'm  .  .  .  I'm  so  disappointed.  I 
thought  you  were  different  and  that  love  to  you 
meant  something  deeper  and  finer  than  —  just 
that."  And  she  would  stand  before  him,  her 
body  alive  with  a  sexual  ardor  that  seemed  to  find 
its  satisfaction  in  the  discomfiture  of  the  man,  in  his 
apologetic  stammers,  in  her  own  virtuous  words; 
and  reach  its  climax  in  the  contrite  embrace  which 
usually  followed  and  the  words,  '  '  Forgive  me,  dear- 
est. Ididn'tmean.  .  .  .  Oh,  will  you  marry  me?" 

These  were  things  in  store  for  Charlie.  But  he 
must  listen  first.  There  were  essential  prelim- 
inaries )  —  a  routine  of  the  chase.  Her  trimly 
shod  foot  crawled  carefully  against  his  ankle. 
There  were  really  two  types  of  men.  Men  who 
blushed  when  you  touched  their  ankle  under  the 
table,  and  men  who  pretended  not  to  blush. 
Charlie  blushed  with  a  soup-spoon  at  his  lips. 
He  glanced  nervously  at  Rachel  but  she  seemed 
breathlessly  asleep  with  her  eyes  open  —  a  para- 
doxical condition  which  baffled  Charlie  and 
caused  him  to  withdraw  disdainfully  from  further 
consideration  of  her. 

Rachel,  eating  without  hunger,  was  remember- 
ing an  actress  in  vaudeville  making  a  preliminary 
curtain  announcement  to  her  "Moments  from 
Great  Plays"  .  .  .  "Lady  Godiva  accordingly 
rode  na-aked  through  the  streets  of  Coventry, 
but,  howevah,  retained  her  vuhtue.  .  .  .  " 

"Oh,  but  Charlie,  you're  not  listening,"  ex- 


192  Erik  Dorn 

plained  Mary.  "I  was  saying  that  chastity  in 
woman  is  something  man  has  insisted  upon  in 
order  to  show  his  capacity  for  waste.  He  likes 
the  world  to  know  that  all  his  possessions  are  new 
and  that  he  can  command  the  purchase  of  new 
things  because  it  shows  his  capacity  for  waste  by 
which  his  standard  of  respectability  is  gauged  in 
the  eyes  of  his  fellows.  .  .  .  " 

Charlie  lent  an  ear  to  the  garbled  veblenisms 
and  gave  it  up.  The  mutterings  and  verbal  ex- 
citements of  women  in  general  were  mysteries 
beyond  Charlie's  desire  to  comprehend.  They 
had,  for  Charlie,  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  It 
was  pleasing,  though,  to  have  her  talk  of  chastity. 
Chastity  had  a  connection  with  the  case.  It  was 
closely  related  to  unchastity.  He  nodded  his  head 
vaguely  and  focused  his  attention  on  questing  for  the 
foot  under  the  table  that  had  withdrawn  itself. 
The  long-haired  waiter  with  the  missing  teeth  was 
an  annoyance.  He  turned  and  glowered  at  him, 

"Don't  you  think  so,  Rachel?"  Mary  pursued. 

A  monkey  chattering.  Another  monkey  kick- 
ing at  her  toes  under  the  table.  A  room  full  of 
monkeys  and  all  the  monkeys  looking  at  her,  talk- 
to  her,  kicking  her  foot,  inspired  by  the  curious 
hallucination  that  she  was  a  part  of  their  monkey 
world.  Rachel  laughed  and  eyes  turned  to  her. 
People  were  always  startled  by  laughter  that 
sounded  so  sudden.  There  must  be  preliminaries 
to  laughter  so  as  to  get  the  atmosphere  prepared 
for  it. 


Wings  193 

" Rachel,  I'm  talking  to  you,  if  you  please." 

Mary,  puckering  her  forehead  very  importantly, 
was  informing  her  that  Mary  existed  and  was  de- 
manding proof  of  the  fact.  That  was  the  secret 
of  people.  They  didn't  really  exist  to  themselves 
until  somebody  recognized  them  and  proved  they 
were  alive — by  answering  their  questions.  People 
lived  only  when  somebody  talked  to  them — any- 
body. The  rest  of  the  time  they  went  along  with 
nothing  inside  them  except  stomachs  that  grew 
hungry. 

She  answered  Mary,  "Oh,  there  are  lots  of  things 
you  don't  know."  And  laughed,  this  time  careful 
of  not  sounding  too  sudden.  She  meant  there 
was  something  that  lived  behind  hours,  there  was 
a  dream  world  in  which  the  words  and  faces  of 
people  were  ridiculously  non-existent.  But  Mary 
was  a  literal-minded  monkey  and  thought  she 
was  referring  to  quotations  from  books  superior  to 
the  ones  she  used. 

"Oh,  is  that  so?"  said  Mary. 

Charlie,  also  literal-minded  and  still  after  the 
foot,  echoed  Rachel,  "You  bet  your  life  it  is." 

"And  I  suppose  you  know  all  about  them,  Miss 
Laskin."  Very  sarcastic.  An  inflection  that  had 
made  her  a  conversational  terror  in  the  Des 
Moines  High  School. 

Mary  was  always  conscious  of  not  having  read 

enough  and  of  therefore  being  secretly  inferior  to 

more   omnivorous   readers.     She   did   not   think 

Rachel   read   much,    but   Rachel   was   different. 

13 


194  Erik  Dorn 

Rachel  was  an  artist  and  had  ideas.  Mary  re- 
spected artists  and  was  always  sarcastic  toward 
them.  It  usually  made  them  talk  a  lot — particu- 
larly male  artists — and  thus  enabled  her  to  find 
out  what  their  ideas  were  and  use  them  as  her  own. 
Nevertheless,  despite  her  most  careful  parrotings 
the  artists  always  managed  to  have  other  ideas 
always  different  from  the  ones  she  stole  from  them. 
Fearing  some  devastating  rejoinder  from  Rachel — 
Rachel  was  the  kind  of  person  who  could  blurt  out 
things  that  landed  on  you  like  a  ton  of  bricks — 
she  sought  to  fortify  Charlie's  opinion  of  her  by 
replacing  her  foot  against  his  ankle. 

"Well,  what  are  they,  Rachel?" 

What  were  the  things  Mary  knew  nothing 
about?  A  large  order.  Rachel's  tongue  began  to 
wag  in  her  mind.  Stand  up  and  make  a  speech. 
Fling  her  arms  about.  High-sailing  words.  Ab- 
surd! A  laugh  would  answer.  Laughs  always 
answered.  Rachel  laughed.  She  would  suffocate 
among  such  people,  exasperating  strangers  with 
inquisitive  faces^and  nervous  feet. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  luncheon  Charlie  had 
reached  a  new  stage  in  his  amorous  maneuverings. 
He  had  paid  no  further  attention  to  Rachel,  al- 
though vividly  conscious  of  her.  But  Mary 
offered  definite  horizons.  A  bird  in  the  hand. 
There  was  something  exciting  about  Mary  not  to 
be  encountered  in  the  Junos  and  Aphrodites  of  his 
cabaret  quests.  Mary  appeared  virtuous — and 
yet  promised  otherwise.  She  used  frank  words — 


Wings  195 

lust,  chastity,  virginity,  sexuality.  Charlie  quiv- 
ered. The  words  sticking  out  of  long,  twisted 
sentences,  detached  themselves  and  came  to  him 
like  furtively  indecent  caresses.  Mary  promised. 
So  he  agreed  to  go  with  her  to  the  Players'  Studio 
where  she  was  rehearsing  in  some  kind  of  nut 
show. 

''You  must  come  too,  Rachel.  Frank  Brander 
has  done  some  gorgeous  settings  for  the  next  bill." 

Long  hours  before  eight  o'clock. 

"I've  got  some  important  things  on  at  the 
office,"  Charlie  hesitated. 

"Yes,  I'll  go,"  Rachel  answered.  This,  mys- 
teriously, seemed  to  decide  Charlie.  He  would 
go  too. 

In  the  buzzing  little  auditorium  of  the  Players' 
Studio,  Charlie  endeavored  to  further  his  quest. 
But  the  atmosphere  seemed,  paradoxically  enough, 
a  handicap.  A  free-and-easy  atmosphere  with 
men  and  women  in  odd-looking  rigs  sauntering 
about.  The  place  was  as  immoral  as  a  honky- 
tonk.  Charlie  stared  at  the  young  women  in 
smocks  and  bobbed  hair,  smoking  cigarettes,  sit- 
ting with  their  legs  showing.  They  should  have 
been  prostitutes  but  they  weren't.  Or  maybe 
they  were,  only  he  wasn't  used  to  that  kind.  Too 
damn  gabby.  Mary  had  jumped  up  on  the  small 
stage  and  was  talking  with  a  group  of  young  men 
and  women.  He  moved  to  follow,  but  hesitated. 
He  didn't  have  the  hang  of  this  kind  of  thing. 
The  sick-looking  youths  loitering  around,  casually 


196  Erik  Dorn 

embracing  the  gals  and  rubbing  their  arms,  seemed 
to  know  the  lingo.  Charlie  sat  down  in  disgust 
and  yielded  himself  to  a  feeling  of  stiffly  superior 
virtue. 

In  a  corner  Rachel  listened  to  Frank  Brander. 

"We've  got  quite  a  promising  outfit  here,  Miss 
Laskin.  Why  don't  you  come  around  and  help 
with  the  drops  or  something?  The  more  the 
merrier.  We're  putting  on  a  thing  by  Chekov 
next  week  and  a  strong  thing  by  Elvenah  Jack. 
Lives  down  the  street.  Know  her?  Oh,  it  isn't 
much."  He  smiled  good-naturedly  at  the  minia- 
ture theater.  "But  it's  fun.  I'll  show  you 
around." 

Rachel  submitted.  Brander  was  a  friend  of 
Emil  Tesla.  He  drew  things  for  The  Cry.  He 
had  a  wide  mouth  and  ugly  eyes  that  took  things 
for  granted — that  took  her  for  granted.  She  was 
a  woman  and  therefore  interested  in  talking  to  a 
man.  He  held  her  arm  too  much  and  kept  saying 
in  her  thought,  "We've  got  to  pretend  we're  de- 
cent, but  we're  not.  We're  a  man  and  woman." 
But  what  did  that  matter?  Long  hours  before 
eight  o'clock. 

On  the  stage  Brander  became  a  personality.  A 
group  of  nondescript  faces  deferred  to  him.  A 
woman  with  stringy  hair  and  an  elocutionist's 
mouth,  grew  dramatic  as  he  passed.  They  paused 
before  Mary.  Brander  had  stopped  abruptly  in 
his  talk.  He  turned  toward  Mary  and  stared  at 
her  until  she  began  to  grow  pink.  Rachel  won- 


Wings  197 

dered.  Mary  wanted  to  run  away,  but  couldn't. 
Brander  finally  said  shortly,  "Hello,  you!"  His 
eyes  blazed  for  an  instant  and  then  grew  angry. 

"Come  on,  Miss  Laskin. "  He  jerked  her  and 
she  followed.  In  the  wings  half  hidden  from  the 
group  that  crowded  the  tiny  stage  Brander  said, 
"Do  you  know  that  girl?" 

Rachel  nodded. 

"She's  no  good,"  he  grinned.  "I  like  women 
one  thing  or  the  other.  She's  both.  And  no 
good.  I  got  her  number." 

Rachel  noticed  that  he  had  moved  his  hand  up 
on  her  arm  and  was  gently  pressing  the  flesh  under 
her  shoulder.  He  kept  saying  to  her  now  in  her 
thought,  "I've  got  a  man's  body  and  you've  got  a 
woman's  body.  There's  that  difference  between 
us.  Why  hide  it?"  His  voice  became  soft  and 
he  said  aloud,  "Don't  you  like  men  to  be  one  kind 
or  the  other?  And  not  both  ? " 

Rachel  looked  at  him  blankly.  She  must  pre- 
tend she  didn't  know  what  he  was  talking  about. 
Otherwise  she  would  begin  to  talk.  He  was  a  man 
to  whom  one  talked  because  he  demanded  it. 
His  face,  ugly  and  boyish,  seemed  to  have  rid 
itself  of  many  expressions  and  retained  a  certainty. 
The  certainty  said,  "I'm  a  man  looking  for 
women." 

Brander  laughed. 

"Oh,  you're  one  of  the  other  kind,"  he  said. 
"Beg  pardon.  No  harm  done.  Let's  go  out 
front." 


198  Erik  Dorn 

Out  front  in  the  half -lighted  auditorium  Bran- 
der  suddenly  left  her.  She  saw  him  a  few  minutes 
later  standing  close  to  a  nervous-voiced  woman 
who  was  saying,  "Oh,  dear !  Dear  me !  I'll  never 
get  this  part.  I  won't !  I  just  know  it ! " 

Brander  was  toying  idly  with  a  chain  that  hung 
about  the  woman's  neck.  He  was  looking  at  her 
intently.  Mary  approached,  bearing  Charlie 
along.  She  began  whispering  to  Rachel,  "That 
man's  a  beast.  I  hate  him.  He  thinks  he's  an 
artist,  but  he's  a  beast.  You'll  find  out  if  you're 
not  careful." 

Rachel  asked,  "Who?" 

"Brander,"  Mary  answered. 

Charlie  interrupted,  indignation  rumbling  in 
his  voice, 

"A  bunch  of  freaks,  all  of  them.  I  don't  see 
why  a  decent  girl  wants  to  hang  around  in  a  dump 
like  this." 

He  was  more  grieved  than  indignant.  A  woman 
with  dark  hair  and  long  gypsy  earrings  had  sud- 
denly laughed  at  him  when  he  sat  down  beside 
her.  Mary  patted  his  arm. 

"I  know,  Charlie.  But  you  don't  understand. 
My  turn  in  a  few  minutes,  Rachel.  We'll  wait 
here  till  the  Chekov  thing  comes  on.  Do  you 
know  Felixson?  He's  got  a  wonderful  thing  for 
the  bill  after  this.  A  religious  play.  Awfully 
strong.  That's  him  with  the  bushy  hair.  You 
must  know  him." 

Charlie  grunted. 


Wings  199 

"You  don't  mean  you  act  in  this  damn  joint?" 

"Oh,  Fm  just  helping  out  for  next  week.  It's 
lots  of  fun,  Charlie." 

Rachel  stood  up  suddenly  from  the  uncomfort- 
able bench  seat. 

"I  must  go,"  she  murmured.     "I'm  sorry." 

Turning  quickly  she  walked  out  of  the  place. 
Behind  her  Charlie  laughed.  ' '  A  wild  little  thing. ' ' 

Mary  with  her  body  pressed  closely  against  him 
combated  an  influence  that  seemed  at  work  upon 
Charlie. 

"She's  changed  a  great  deal,  poor  girl,"  said 
Mary. 

"What  is  she?" 

"An  artist.  She  says  wonderful  things  some- 
times. Awfully  strong  things  and  just  hates 
people." 

"A  nut,"  agreed  Charlie. 

"Oh,  she's  sort  of  strange.  Puts  on  a  lot,  of 
course."  Mary  felt  uncomfortable.  Rachel  had 
managed  to  leave  behind  a  feeling  of  the  unim- 
portance of  everybody  but  Rachel.  She  was  lean- 
ing against  Charlie  for  vindication.  His  body, 
trembling  at  the  contact,  provided  it;  but  his 
words  annoyed  her. 

"Well,  she's  different  from  the  gang  in  here — 
I'll  say  that  for  her." 

"Oh,  let's  forget  her,"  Mary  whispered.  "I 
don't  like  this  place.  Really,  I  .  .  ."  She 
hesitated  and  thought,  "Rachel  thinks  she's  mys- 
terious and  enigmatic  and  everything,  but  she's 


200  Erik  Dorn 

an  awful  fool.  She  can't  put  it  over  on  me." 
Yet  she  sat,  despite  the  vindication  of  Charlie's 
amorous  embarrassment,  and  wondered,  parrot 
fashion,  "Ah,  what  is  life?" 

Outside  Rachel  was  walking  again.  The 
memory  of  her  meeting  with  Mary,  of  Brander's 
ugly  appealing  face  that  whispered  frankly  of 
his  sex,  was  dead  in  her.  Little  toy  people  play- 
ing at  games.  Erik  hated  them.  Erik  said 
.  .  .  well,  it  was  something  too  indecent  to  re- 
peat. She  couldn't  get  used  to  Erik's  indecent 
comparisons.  But  they  were  like  that — the  toy 
people  in  the  little  toy  village.  She  didn't  hate 
them  the  way  Erik  did.  Some  of  them  were  just 
playing.  But  there  were  others.  Why  think  of 
them?  Walk,  walk.  Just  be.  A  perfect  circle. 
.  .  .  "There's  nothing  to  do.  I  don't  want 
anything.  To-night  he'll  talk  to  me.  And  I'll 
make  real  answers."  Why  did  she  want  to  be 
kissed?  Kisses  were  for  people  like  Mary.  "Oh, 
he'll  kiss  me  and  I'll  become  alive." 

It  was  late  afternoon.  Still,  long  hours  before 
eight  o'clock.  It  pleased  Erik  when  she  told  him 
how  empty  the  day  had  been.  But  she  mustn't 
harp  too  much  on  that.  It  would  sound  as  if  she 
were  making  demands  on  him.  No  demands.  He 
was  free.  They  weren't  married.  A  crowd  was 
solidifying  in  loth  Street.  She  walked  slowly, 
watching  the  people  gathering  at  the  corner.  The 
office  of  The  Cry  was  there.  She  remembered  this 
and  hurried  forward. 


Wings  201 

Something  was  happening.  An  excitement  was 
jerking  people  out  of  their  silences.  Blank,  silent 
faces  around  her  suddenly  opened  and  dropped 
masks.  Bodies  drifting  carelessly  up  and  down 
the  street  broke  into  runnings. 

Around  the  corner  people  were  shouting,  pressed 
into  a  ball  of  wild  faces  and  waving  arms.  It  was 
in  front  of  the  office  of  The  Cry  that  something 
was  happening. 

' '  Kill  the  dirty  rascal !    Make  the  son-of -a  — 
kiss  the  flag!" 

Words  screeched  out  of  a  bay  of  sound. 

"Kill  him!    Kill  the  son-of -a String  him 

up!" 

On  the  edge  of  the  ball  that  was  growing  larger 
and  seeming  about  to  burst  into  some  wild  activ- 
ity, Rachel  stood  tip-toed.  She  could  see  two 
burly-looking  men  dragging  a  bloody  figure  out  of 
a  doorway.  Blood  dropped  from  him,  leaving 
stains  on  the  top  step.  The  two  men  were  twist- 
ing his  wrists  as  if  they  wanted  them  to  come 
off.  Yet  they  didn't  act  as  if  they  were  twisting 
anybody's  wrists  off.  They  seemed  to  be  just 
waiting. 

It  was  Tesla  between  them.  His  face  was  cut. 
One  of  his  arms  hung  limp.  Blood  began  to  spurt 
from  his  wrists  and  drop  from  his  fingers  as  if  he 
were  writing  something  on  the  top  step  in  a  fool- 
ish way.  At  the  sight  of  him  the  noises  increased. 
The  ball  of  faces  grew  angrier.  Policemen  swung 
sticks.  They  yelled,  "Back,  there!  Everybody 


202  Erik  Dorn 

back!"  Runners  were  coming  from  all  directions 
as  if  the  city  had  suddenly  found  a  place  to  go  and 
was  pouring  itself  into  loth  Street. 

"Hey  ...  hey  ...  they've  got  him!" 

Nobody  asked  who,  but  came  running  with  a 
shout. 

The  street  broke  over  Rachel.  Tesla  vanished. 
Roaring  in  her  ears,  faces  tumbling,  lifting  in  a 
wildness  about  her.  A  make-believe  of  horror. 
Her  thought  gasped,  "Where  am  I?  What  is 
this?"  Her  feet  were  carrying  her  into  the  boil- 
ing center  of  a  vat  of  bodies.  Then  she  saw  Tesla 
again,  standing  above  them.  A  blood-smeared 
man  with  a  broken  arm,  his  head  raised.  But  he 
was  somebody  else. 

Caught  in  the  pack  she  became  far  away,  seeing 
things  move  as  with  an  almost  lifeless  deliberate- 
ness.  Tesla 's  face  was  the  center.  His  swollen 
eyes  were  trying  to  open.  His  paralyzed  mouth 
was  trying  to  form  itself  back  into  a  mouth.  A 
mist  covered  him  as  if  the  raging  street  and  the 
many  voices  focused  into  a  film  and  hid  him.  Be- 
hind this  film  he  was  doing  something  slowly. 
Then  he  became  vivid.  He  was  shouting, 

"Comrades   .    .    .   workers   .    .    ." 

A  roar  from  the  street  concealed  him  and  his 
voice.  But  the  vividness  of  him  lingered  and 
emerged  again. 

"Comrades!" 

A  fist  struck  against  his  mouth.  His  head 
wabbled.  Another  fist  struck  against  his  eye. 


Wings  203 

The  two  men  holding  his  wrists  were  striking  into 
his  uncovered  face  with  their  fists.  A  gleeful, 
joyous  sound  went  up.  Rachel  stared  at  the 
wabbling  head  of  Tesla.  The  street  laughed. 
Fists  hammered  at  an  uncovered  face.  People 
were  coming  on  a  run  to  see.  A  bell  clanged. 
Beside  her  a  man  shrieked,  "Make  him  kiss  the 
flag,  the  dirty  anarchist!" 

Things  slowed  again.  A  film  was  over  the 
scene.  Tesla  was  being  dragged  down  the  steps. 
His  head  kept  falling  back  as  if  he  wanted  to  go 
to  sleep.  Then  something  happened.  A  laugh, 
high  like  a  scream,  lit  the  air.  It  made  her  cold. 
The  men  dragging  Tesla  down  the  steps  paused, 
and  their  fists  moving  with  a  leisureliness  struck 
into  his  face,  making  no  sound  and  not  doing  any- 
thing. It  was  Tesla  who  had  laughed.  The  fists 
kept  moving  through  a  film.  But  he  laughed 
again — a  high  laugh  like  a  scream  that  lit  the  air 
with  mystery. 

When  the  pack  began  to  sift  and  sweep  her  into 
strange  directions  she  felt  that  Tesla  was  still 
laughing,  though  she  could  no  longer  hear  him. 
The  street  became  shapeless.  Something  had 
ended.  A  bell  clanged  away.  People  were  again 
walking.  They  had  dull  faces  and  were  quiet. 
She  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  step  on  which  Tesla 
had  stood  behind  a  mist  and  cried,  "Comrades!" 
She  remembered  often  having  stood  on  the  step 
herself  in  coming  to  the  office  of  The  Cry.  This 
made  her  sicken.  It  was  her  wrists  that  had  been 


204  Erik  Dorn 

twisted,  her  uncovered  face  that  had  been  struck 
by  fists. 

The  emotion  left  her  as  a  hand  tugged  eagerly 
at  her  arm.  It  pulled  her  up  on  the  crowded 
curbing. 

"Good  God,  Rachel,  what  are  you  doing 
here?" 

She  looked  up  and  saw  Hazlitt  in  uniform.  He 
kept  pulling  her.  Why  should  Hazlitt  be  pulling 
her  out  of  a  crowd  in  loth  Street?  She  tried  to 
jerk  away.  She  must  run  from  Hazlitt  before  he 
began  talking.  He  would  make  her  scream. 

Turning  to  him  with  a  quiet  in  her  voice  she 
said  carefully: 

"Please  let  me  go.     You  hurt  my  arm." 

But  his  hand  remained.  His  eyes,  shining  and 
indignant,  prodded  at  her.  .  .  .  The  street 
was  quiet.  Nothing  had  happened.  Unconscious 
buildings,  unconscious  traffic,  faces  wrapped  in 
solitudes — these  were  in  the  streets  again.  She 
turned  and  looked  with  amazement  at  her  com- 
panion. People  do  not  fall  out  of  the  sky  and 
seize  you  by  the  arm.  There  was  something  stark 
about  Hazlitt  pulling  her  out  of  the  street  mob 
and  holding  her  arm.  He  was  an  amputation. 
You  pulled  yourself  out  of  a  filth  of  faces  and 
sprawled  suddenly  into  a  quiet,  cheerful  street 
holding  an  arm  in  your  hand,  as  if  it  had  come 
loose  from  the  pack.  It  seemed  part  of  some 
arrangement — Tesla,  the  pack,  Hazlitt's  arm. 
Her  amazement  died.  Hazlitt  was  saying: 


Wings  205 

"I  knew  you'd  be  in  that  mob.  I  thought 
when  I  saw  them  haul  that  dirty  beggar 
out  .  .  ." 

He  halted,  pained  by  a  memory.  Rachel 
nodded.  The  curious  sense  of  having  been  Tesla 
came  again  to  her.  He  had  laughed  in  a  way 
that  reminded  her  of  herself.  She  would  laugh 
like  that  if  they  struck  at  her  face.  Her  eyes 
turned  frightenedly  toward  Hazlitt.  What  was 
he  going  to  do?  Arrest  her?  He  was  in  uniform. 
But  why  should  he  arrest  her?  His  eyes  had  the 
fixed  light  of  somebody  performing  a  duty.  He 
was  arresting  her,  and  Erik  would  come  home  and 
not  find  her.  Her  lithe  body  became  possessed  of 
an  astounding  strength.  With  a  vicious  grimace 
she  tore  herself  from  his  grip  and  confronted  him, 
her  eyes  on  fire. 

"  Please,  Rachel.  Come  with  me  till  I  can  talk; 
You  must  .  .  ." 

A  white-faced  Hazlitt,  with  suffering  eyes. 
Then  he  was  not  arresting  her.  The  street 
bobbed  along  indifferently. 

"I'm  going  away  in  an  hour.  You'll  maybe 
never  see  me  again.  But  I  can't  go  away  till  I've 
talked  to  you.  Please." 

It  didn't  matter  then.  She  would  be  home  in 
time.  And  it  was  easier  to  obey  the  desperate 
whine  of  his  voice  then  run  into  the  crowd.  He 
would  chase  after  her,  whining  louder  and  louder. 
They  entered  a  hotel  lobby.  Hazlitt  picked  out  a 
secluded  corner  as  if  arranging  for  some  rite. 


206  Erik  Dorn 

He  was  going  to  do  something.  Rachel  walked 
after  him,  annoyed,  indifferent.  What  did  it 
matter?  This  was  George  Hazlitt — a  name  that 
meant  nothing  and  yet  could  talk  to  her. 

Sitting  opposite  her  the  name  began,  "Now 
you  must  promise  me  you  won't  get  up  and  run 
away  till  I'm  through — no  matter  what  I  say." 

She  promised  with  a  nod.  She  must  be  polite. 
Being  polite  was  part  of  the  idiotic  penalties  at- 
tached to  adventuring  outside  her  real  world,  in 
unreal  superfluous  streets.  What  had  made  Tesla 
laugh?  His  laugh  had  not  been  unreal.  Almost 
as  if  it  were  a  part  of  her.  Blood  dropping  from 
his  fingers.  A  bleeding  man. 

"  I'm  leaving  for  France,  Rachel.  I  couldn't  go 
away  without  seeing  you.  I've  spent  a  week  try- 
ing to  find  you  and  this  morning  they  told  me  to 
inquire  at  The  Cry." 

Was  he  apologizing  for  Tesla  ?  She  remembered 
the  faces  that  had  swept  by  in  loth  Street.  His 
had  been  one  of  them.  Hazlitt  had  twisted 
Tesla's  wrists  and  struck  into  his  uncovered  face. 

Rachel  slipped  to  her  feet  and  stared  about  her. 
A  hand  caught  at  her  arm  and  pulled  her  into  the 
chair. 

"You  promised.  You  can't  leave  till  you  hear 
me." 

She  sank  back. 

"  Give  me  five  minutes.  I'm  unworthy  of  them. 
But  I've  found  you  and  must  talk  now.  I  can't 
go  across  without  telling  you." 


Wings  207 

She  looked  up.  Tears  almost  in  his  eyes.  His 
voice  grown  low.  He  seemed  to  be  whispering 
something  that  didn't  belong  to  the  sanity  of  the 
hotel  lobby  and  the  two  large  potted  palms  in 
the  corner. 

41  I'm  unclean.  I've  been  looking  for  you  to  ask 
you  to  forgive  me." 

Hazlitt's  hands  crept  over  his  knees. 

''Oh,  God,  you  must  listen  and  forgive  me." 

This  was  a  mad  monkey  uttering  noises  too 
unintelligible  for  even  an  attentive  hat,  dress,  and 
pair  of  shoes  to  make  anything  of. 

"  Rachel,  I  love  you.  I  don't  know  how  to  say 
it.  There's  something  I've  got  to  say.  Because 
.  .  .  otherwise  I  can't  love  you.  I  can't  love 
you  with  the  thing  unsaid." 

He  looked  bewilderedly  about  him  and  gulped, 
his  face  red,  his  eyes  tortured. 

"It's  about  a  woman." 

"Perhaps,"  she  thought,  "he's  going  to  boast. 
No,  he's  going  to  cry.  What  does  he  want?" 

The  sound  of  his  voice  made  her  ill.  If  he  were 
going  to  make  love  why  didn't  he  start  instead  of 
gulping  and  covering  his  face  and  choking  with 
tears  in  a  hotel  lobby  as  if  he  were  an  actor? 

4 '  I  was  drawn  into  it.  I  couldn't  help  it.  One 
afternoon  in  my  office  after  the  trial.  Then  she 
kept  after  me.  The  thought  of  you  has  been  like 
knives  in  me.  I've  loved  you  all  through  it  and 
hated  myself  for  thinking  of  you,  dragging  you 
into  it.  I  dragged  the  thought  of  you  down  with 


208  Erik  Dorn 

me.  But  she  wouldn't  let  me  go.  God,  I  could 
kill  her  now.  I  broke  away  after  weeks.  She 
got  somebody  else.  I've  been  living  in  hell  ever 
since — on  account  of  you.  I'm  unclean  and  can't 
love  you  any  more.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  my 
going  across  I'd  not  have  come  to  you.  But  the 
war's  given  me  my  chance.  I  can't  explain  it. 
I  went  in  to — to  wipe  it  out.  But  I  had  to  find 
you  and  tell  you.  I  didn't  want  to  think  of  dying 
and  having  insulted  you  and  not  .  .  . " 

He  stopped,  overcome.  Rachel  was  nodding 
her  head.  She  must  make  an  answer  to  this.  It 
was  a  riddle  asking  an  answer. 

"For  God's  sake,  Rachel,  don't  look  like  that. 
Oh,  you're  so  clean  and  pure.  I  can't  tell  you. 
You're  like  a  star  shining  and  me  in  the  mud. 
You've  always  hated  me.  But  it's  different  now. 
I'm  going  to  France  to  die.  I  don't  want  to  live. 
If  you  forgive  me  it'll  be  easier.  That's  why  I  had 
to  talk,  Rachel,  forgive  me.  And  then  it  won't 
matter  what  happens." 

She  let  him  take  her  hand.  It  was  an  easy  way 
to  make  an  answer.  A  desire  to  giggle  had  to  be 
overruled.  The  words  he  had  spoken  became 
absurd  little  manikins  of  words,  bowing  at  each 
other,  striking  idiotic  postures  before  her.  But 
he  had  done  something  and  for  some  astounding 
reason  wanted  her  to  forgive  him  for  what  he  had 
done.  He  was  a  fool.  An  impossible  fool.  He 
sat  and  looked  like  a  fool.  Not  even  a  man. 

Hazlitt  raised  her  hand  to  his  face.     Tears  fell 


Wings  209 

on  it.  Rachel  felt  them  crawling  warmly  over  her 
fingers.  They  were  too  intimate. 

"You  make  me  feel  almost  clean  again.  Your 
hand's  like  something  clean  and  pure.  If  I  come 
back  .  .  ." 

He  stared  at  her  in  desperation.  He  seemed 
suddenly  to  have  forgotten  his  intention  to  die  in 
France.  He  recalled  Pauline.  Was  he  sorry? 
No.  It  was  over.  Not  his  fault.  All  this  to 
Rachel  was  a  ruse.  Clever  way  to  get  her 
sympathy.  Not  quite.  But  he  felt  better. 

He  became  incomprehensible  to  Rachel.  The 
things  he  had  said — his  weeping,  gulping — all 
part  of  an  incomprehensible  business.  She  nodded 
her  head  and  looked  serious.  It  was  something 
that  had  to  do  with  a  far-away  world. 

"Good-bye.  Remember,  I  love  you.  And 
I'll  come  through  clean  because  of  you.  .  .  . " 

She  held  out  her  hand  and  said,  "Good-bye." 

But  he  didn't  go.  Now  he  was  completely  a 
fool.  Now  there  was  something  so  completely 
foolish  about  him  that  she  must  laugh.  The  light 
in  his  face  detained  her  laughter. 

"You  forgive  me  .    .    .  for  .    .    ." 

She  nodded  her  head  again.  It  seemed  to  pro- 
duce a  magical  effect — this  nodding  of  her  head 
up  and  down.  His  eyes  brightened  and  he 
appeared  to  grow  taller. 

"Then  if  I  die,  I'll  go  to  heaven." 

She  winced  at  this.  An  unbearable  stupidity. 
But  Hazlitt  stood  looking  at  her  for  an  instant. 
14 


210  Erik  Dorn 

quite  serious,  as  if  he  had  said  something  noble. 
He  saluted  her,  his  hand  to  his  cap,  his  heels 
together,  and  went  away. 

The  memory  lingered.  Hazlitt  had  always 
been  incomprehensible.  His  stupidity  was  easy 
enought  to  understand.  But  something  under  it 
was  a  mess.  Now  he  was  a  fool.  Stiff  and 
idiotic  and  making  her  feel  ashamed  as  if  she  were 
sorry  for  him.  .  *  1;  Tesla  came  back  and  stood 
on  a  step  dropping  blood  from  his  fingers.  Bran- 
der  came  back  and  whispered  with  his  ugly  face. 
Hazlitt,  Tesla,  Brander — three  men  that  jumped 
out  at  her  from  the  superfluous  streets.  Like 
the  three  men  in  the  park  walking  horribly  across 
the  white  park  in  the  night.  .  .  .  An  idiot,  a 
bleeding  man,  and  an  ugly  face.  But  they  had 
passed  her  and  gone.  They  were  things  seen 
outside  a  window. 

Her  eyes  looking  at  a  clock  said  to  her,  "Two 
hours  more.  Oh,  in  two  hours,  in  two  hours!" 

She  sat  motionless  until  the  clock  said,  "One 
hour  more,  one  more  hour!" 

Then  she  stood  up  and  walked  slowly  out  of 
the  hotel.  Things  had  changed  since  she  had  left 
the  streets.  The  strange  world  full  of  Marys, 
Hazlitts,  and  Teslas  had  added  further  superflui- 
ties. A  band  of  music.  Soldiers  marching. 
Buildings  waving  flags  and  crying,  ' '  Boom,  boom ! 
we  have  gone  to  war!  .  .  . " 

She  came  to  her  home.  A  red-brick  house  like 
other  red-brick  houses.  But  her  home.  What  a 


Wings  211 

fool  she  had  been  to  leave  it.  It  would  have  been 
easier  waiting  here.  She  walked  into  the  two 
familiar  rooms  filled  with  the  memory  of  Erik — 
two  rooms  that  embraced  her.  Her  hat  fell  on 
the  bed.  She  would  have  to  eat.  Downstairs  in 
the  dining-room.  Other  boarders  to  look  at. 
But  Erik  would  have  eaten  when  he  came.  He 
preferred  eating  alone. 

Rachel  took  her  place  at  one  of  the  smaller 
tables  and  dabbled  through  a  series  of  uninterest- 
ing dishes.  An  admiring  waitress  rebuked  her 
.  .  .  "Dearie,  you  ain't  eating  hardly  any- 
thing." 

She  smiled  at  the  waitress  and  watched  her 
later  bringing  dishes  to  a  purple-faced  fat  man  at 
an  adjoining  table.  The  fat  man  was  futilely  en- 
deavoring to  tell  secrets  to  the  waitress  by  con- 
torting his  features  and  screwing  up  his  eyes.  He 
reminded  Rachel  of  Brander,  only  Brander  told 
secrets  without  trying.  She  finished  and  hurried 
out.  She  would  be  hungry  later,  but  it  didn't 
matter.  Erik  would  be  there  then. 

In  the  hallway  Mrs.  McGuire  called,  "Oh, 
Mrs.  Dorn!" 

Being  called  Mrs.  Dorn  always  frightened  her 
and  made  her  dizzy.  She  paused.  Some  day 
Mrs.  McGuire  would  look  at  her  shrewdly  and 
say,  "You're  not  Mrs.  Dorn.  I  called  you  Mrs. 
Dorn  but  I  know  better.  Don't  think  you're 
fooling  anybody.  Mrs.  Dorn,  indeed!" 

But  Mrs.  McGuire  held  out  her  hand. 


212  Erik  Dorn 

"A  letter  for  your  husband.  Do  you  want  to 
sit  in  the  parlor,  Mrs.  Dorn?  You  know  I  want 
all  my  boarders  to  make  themselves  entirely  at 
home." 

"Thank  you/'  said  Rachel.  "You're  so  nice. 
But  I  have  some  work  to  do  upstairs." 

Escaping  Mrs.  McGuire  was  one  of  the  difficult 
things  of  the  day.  A  buxom,  round-faced  woman 
in  black  with  friendly  eyes,  Mrs.  McGuire  had  a 
son  in  the  army  and  a  sainted  husband  dead  and 
buried,  and  a  childish  faith  in  the  friendliness 
and  interest  of  people.  Rachel  hurried  up  the 
stairs.  In  her  room  she  looked  at  the  letter.  For 
Erik.  Readdressed  twice.  From  Chicago.  She 
stood  holding  it.  It  said  to  her,  "I  am  from 
Anna.  I  am  from  Anna.  Words  of  Anna.  I  am 
the  wife  of  Erik  Dorn." 

Anna  was  a  reality.  Long  ago  Anna  had  been  a 
reality.  A  background  against  which  the  dream 
of  Erik  Dorn  raised  itself.  She  remembered  sit- 
ting close  to  Anna  and  smiling  at  her  the  first 
time  she  had  visited  Erik's  home.  Why  had  she 
gone?  If  only  she  had  never  seen  Anna!  Her 
tired,  sad  eyes  that  smiled  at  Erik.  Rachel's 
fingers  tightened  over  the  envelope.  She  laughed 
nervously  and  tore  the  letter.  He  was  hers. 
Anna  couldn't  write  to  him. 

A  pain  came  into  her  heart  as  the  paper  sepa- 
rated itself  into  bits  in  her  fingers.  She  felt  her- 
self tearing  something  that  was  alive.  It  was  cruel 
to  tear  the  letter.  But  it  would  save  Erik  pain. 


Wings  213 

...  To  read  Anna's  words,  to  hear  her  cries, 
see  her  sad  tired  eyes  staring  in  anguish  out  of  the 
writing — that  would  hurt  Erik. 

She  dropped  the  bits  into  the  waste-paper  bas- 
ket and  stood  wide-eyed  over  them.  She  had 
dared.  As  if  he  had  belonged  to  her.  What 
would  he  say?  But  he  wouldn't  know.  Unless 
Mrs.  McGuire  said,  ''There  was  a  letter  for  you, 
Mr.  Dorn."  Why  hadn't  she  read  the  letter  be- 
fore tearing  it  up?  Perhaps  it  was  important, 
saying  Anna  had  died.  When  Anna  died  Erik 
would  marry  her.  She  would  have  children  and 
live  in  a  house  of  her  own.  Mrs.  Rachel  Dorn, 
people  would  call  her.  This  was  a  dream.  .  .  . 
Mrs.  Rachel  Dorn.  He  would  laugh  if  he  knew; 
or  worse,  be  angry.  But  .  .  .  "Oh,  God,  I 
want  him.  Like  that.  Complete."  Anna  had 
had  him  like  that.  The  other  thing.  Not 
respectability.  But  the  possession  of  little  things. 

She  would  have  to  tell  him  about  the  letter. 
She  couldn't  lie  to  him,  even  silently.  The  clock 
on  the  dresser,  ticking  as  it  had  always  ticked, 
said,  "  In  a  half  -hour  .  .  .  a  half -hour  more." 

She  sprang  from  the  bed  and  stood  listening. 

Someone  was  coming  down  the  hall.  Strange 
hours  fell  from  her.  Now  Erik  was  coming. 
Now  life  commenced.  The  empty  circle  of  the 
day  was  over. 

Her  body  grew  wild  as  if  she  must  leap  out  of 
herself.  Her  eyes  hung  devouringly  upon  the 
blank  door — a  door  opening  and  Erik  standing, 


Erik  Dorn 


smiling  at  her.  It  was  still  a  dream.  It  would 
never  become  real.  She  would  always  feel  fright- 
ened. Though  he  came  home  a  hundred  thou- 
sand times  she  would  always  wait  like  now  for 
the  door  to  open  with  a  fear  and  a  dream  in  her 
heart.  But  why  did  he  knock? 

She  opened  the  door  with  a  feverish  jerk.  Not 
Erik.  A  messenger-boy  blinking  surprised  eyes. 

"Mrs.  Dorn?" 

"Yes." 

1  '  Sign  here,  second  line.  '  ' 

A  blank  door  again.     The  message  read: 

'Til  be  home  late.     Don't  worry.    ERIK." 


CHAPTER  III 

WARREN  LOCKWOOD  was  a  man  who  wrote 
novels.  He  had  lived  in  the  Middle  West 
until  he  was  thirty-five  and  begun  his  writing  at 
his  desk  in  a  real-estate  office  of  which  he  had  been 
until  then  a  somewhat  bored  half  owner. 

During  the  months  Erik  Dorn  had  been  work- 
ing on  the  staff  of  "the  New  Opinion — an  Organ  of 
Liberal  Thought, "  he  had  encountered  Lockwood 
frequently — a  dark-haired,  rugged-faced  man  with 
a  drawling,  high-pitched  masculine  voice.  Dorn 
liked  him.  He  talked  in  the  manner  of  a  man 
carefully  focusing  objects  into  range.  Lockwood 
was  aware  he  had  gotten  under  the  skin  of  things. 
He  talked  that  way. 

The  change  from  the  newspaper  to  the  magazine 
continued,  after  several  months,  to  irritate  Dorn. 
The  leisureliness  of  his  new  work  aggravated. 
There  was  an  intruding  sterility  about  it.  The 
New  Opinion  was  a  weekly.  From  week  to  week  it 
offered  a  growing  clientele  finalities.  There  were 
finalities  on  the  war,  finalities  on  the  social  unrest ; 
finalities  on  art,  life,  religion,  the  past,  present,  and 
future.  A  cock-sure  magazine,  gently,  tolerantly 
elbowing  aside  the  mysteries  of  existence  and  hold- 
ing up  between  carefully  manicured  thumb  and 

215 


2i6  Erik  Dorn 

forefinger  the  Gist  of  the  Thing.  The  Irrefutable 
Truth.  The  Perfect  Deduction. 

There  were  a  number  of  intelligent  men  engaged 
in  the  work  of  writing  and  editing  the  periodical. 
They  seemed  all  to  have  graduated  from  an  iden- 
tical strata.  Dorn,  becoming  acquainted  with 
them,  found  them  intolerable.  They  appealed  to 
him  as  a  group  of  carefully  tailored  Abstractions 
bombinating  mellifluously  in  a  void.  The  precision 
of  logic  was  in  them.  The  precision  of  even  tem- 
pers. The  precision  of  aloof  eyes  fastened  upon 
finalities.  Theoretical  radicals.  Theoretical  con- 
servatives. Theoretical  philosophers.  Any  ap- 
pellation preceded  by  the  adjective  theoretical 
fitted  them  snugly.  Of  contact  with  the  hurdy- 
gurdy  of  existence  which  he  as  a  journalist  felt 
under  the  ideas  of  the  day,  there  was  none.  Life 
in  the  minds  of  the  intellectual  staff  of  the  New 
Opinion  smoothed  itself  out  into  intellectual  para- 
graphs. And  from  week  to  week  these  paragraphs 
made  their  bow  to  the  public.  Mannerly  admoni- 
tions, courteous  disapprovals.  A  style  borrowed 
from  the  memory  of  the  professor  informing  a 
backward  class  in  economics  what  the  exact  date 
of  the  signing  of  the  Magna  Charta  really  was. 

Lockwood  was  the  exception.  He  wrote  occa- 
sional fictional  sketches  for  the  magazine.  Dorn 
had  been  attracted  to  him  at  first  because  of  the 
curious  intonations  of  his  voice.  He  had  not  read 
the  man's  novels — there  were  four  of  them  dealing 
with  the  Middle  West — but  in  the  repressed  sing- 


Wings  217 

song  of  his  voice  Dorn  had  sensed  an  unusual 
character. 

"He's  a  good  writer,  an  artist,"  he  thought, 
hearing  him  talking  to  Edwards,  one  of  the  editors. 
' '  He  talks  like  a  lover  arguing  patiently  and  gently 
with  his  own  thoughts." 

After  that  they  had  walked  and  eaten  together. 
The  idea  of  Warren  Lockwood  being  a  lover  grew 
upon  Dorn.  Of  little  things,  of  things  seemingly 
unimportant  and  impersonal,  the  novelist  talked 
as  he  would  have  liked  to  talk  to  Rachel — with  a 
slow  simplicity  that  caressed  his  subjects  and  said, 
"These  are  little  things  but  we  must  be  careful  in 
handling  them,  for  they're  a  part  of  life."  And  life 
was  important.  People  were  tremendously  exist- 
ent. Dorn,  listening  to  the  novelist,  would  watch 
his  eyes  that  seemed  to  be  always  adventuring 
among  secrets. 

Once  he  thought,  "A  sort  of  mother  love  is  in 
him.  He  keeps  trying  to  say  something  that's 
never  in  his  words.  His  thoughts  are  like  a  lover's 
fingers  stroking  a  girl's  hair.  That's  because  he's 
found  himself.  He  feels  strong  and  lets  his  strength 
come  out  in  gentleness.  He's  found  himself  and  is 
trying  to  shape  secrets  into  words." 

In  comparing  Lockwood  with  the  others  on  the 
staff  of  the  magazine  he  explained,  "There's  the 
difference  between  a  man  and  an  intellect.  War- 
ren's a  man.  The  others  are  a  group  of  schoolboys 
reducing  life  to  lessons." 

There  grew  up  in  Dorn  a  curious  envy  of  the 


2i8  Erik  Dorn 

novelist.  He  would  think  of  him  frequently  when 
alone,  "The  fellow's  content  to  write.  I'm  not. 
He's  found  his  way  of  saying  what's  in  him,  getting 
rid  of  his  energies  and  love.  I  haven't.  He  feels 
toward  the  world  as  I  do  toward  Rachel.  An 
overpowering  reality  and  mystery  are  always 
before  him;  but  it  gives  him  a  mental  perspective. 
What  does  Rachel  give  me  ?  Desires,  ambitions — 
a  sort  of  laughing  madness  that  I  can't  translate 
into  anything  but  kisses.  I'm  cleverer  than  I  was 
before.  I  talk  and  write  better.  There's  a  certain 
wildness  about  things  as  if  I  were  living  in  a  storm. 
Yes,  I  have  wings,  but  there's  no  place  to  fly  with 
them.  Except  into  her  arms.  There  must  be 
something  else." 

And  he  would  rush  through  the  day,  outwardly 
a  man  of  inexhaustible  energies,  stamping  himself 
upon  the  consciousness  of  people  as  a  brilliant, 
dominating  personality.  Edwards,  with  whom  he 
discussed  matter  for  editorials  and  articles,  had 
grown  to  regard  him  with  awe. 

"I've  never  felt  genius  so  keenly  before," 
Edwards  explained  him  to  Lockwood.  "The  man 
seems  burning  up.  Did  you  read  his  thing  on 
Russia  and  Kerensky?  Lord,  it  was  absolutely 
prophetic." 

Lockwood  shook  his  head. 

"Dorn's  too  damn  clever,"  he  drawled. 
"Things  come  too  easily  to  him.  He's  got  an  eye 
but — I  can't  put  my  finger  on  it.  You  see  a  fella's 
got  to  have  something  inside  him.  The  things 


Wings  219 

Erik  says  cleverly  and  prophetically  don't  mean 
anything  much,  because  they  don't  mean  anything 
to  him.  He  makes  'em  up  as  he  goes  along.'' 

Edwards  disagreed.  He  was  a  younger  man 
than  Lockwood,  with  an  impressionable  erudition. 
Like  his  co-workers  he  had  been  somewhat  stam- 
peded by  Dorn's  imitative  faculties,  faculties 
which  enabled  the  former  journalist  to  bombinate 
twice  as  loud  in  a  void  three  times  as  great  as  any 
of  his  colleagues. 

"Well,  I've  met  a  lot  of  writing  men  since  I 
came  East,"  he  said.  "And  Dorn's  the  best  of 
them.  He's  more  than  a  man  of  promise.  He's 
opened  up.  Look  what  he's  done  in  the  new  num- 
ber. Absolutely  revolutionized  the  liberal  thought 
of  the  country.  You've  got  to  admit  that.  He's 
a  man  incapable  of  fanaticism." 

"That's  just  it,"  smiled  Lockwood.  "You've 
hit  it.  You've  put  your  finger  on  it.  He's  the 
kind  of  man  who  knows  too  damn  much  and  don't 
believe  anything." 

The  friendship  between  Lockwood  and  Dorn 
matured  quickly.  The  two  men,  profoundly  dis- 
similar in  their  natures,  found  themselves  launched 
upon  a  growing  intimacy.  .To  Lockwood,  heavy 
spoken,  delicate  sensed,  naive  despite  the  shrewd- 
ness of  his  forty-five  years,  Erik  Dorn  appealed  as 
some  exotic  mechanical  contrivance  might  for  a 
day  fascinate  and  bewilder  the  intelligence  of  a 
rustic.  And  the  other,  in  the  midst  of  magnificent 
bombinations  that  amazed  his  friend,  thought, 


220  Erik  Dorn 

"If  I  only  had  this  man's  simplicity.  If  on  top  of 
my  ability  to  unravel  mysteries  into  words  I  could 
feel  these  mysteries  as  he  does,  I  might  do  some- 
thing." 

At  other  times,  carried  away  by  the  strength  of 
his  own  nature,  he  would  find  himself  looking 
down  upon  Lockwood.  "I'm  alive.  He's  static. 
I  live  above  him.  There's  nothing  beyond  me.  I 
can't  feel  the  things  out  of  which  he  makes  his 
novels,  because  I'm  beyond  them." 

He  would  think  then  of  Lockwood  as  an  eagle 
of  a  rustic  painstakingly  hoeing  a  field.  On  such 
days  the  disquiet  would  vanish  from  Dorn's 
thought.  He  would  feel  himself  propelled  through 
the  hours  as  if  by  some  irresistible  wind  of  which  he 
had  become  a  part.  To  live  was  enough.  To  live 
was  to  give  expression  to  the  clamoring  forces  in 
him.  To  sweep  over  Edwards,  hurl  himself 
through  crowds,  pulverize  Warren,  bang  out  as- 
tounding fictions  on  the  typewriter,  watch  the 
faces  of  acquaintances  light  up  with  admiration  as 
he  spoke — this  sufficed.  The  world  galvanized 
itself  about  him.  He  could  do  anything.  He  could 
give  vision  to  people,  create  new  life  around  him. 
This  consciousness  sufficed.  Then  to  rush  home 
from  a  triumphant  day,  a  glorious  contempt  for 
his  fellows  lingering  like  wine  in  his  head — and 
find  Rachel — an  eagle  waiting  in  a  nest. 

Joy,  then,  become  a  mania.  Desires  feeding 
upon  themselves,  devouring  his  body  and  his 
senses  and  hurling  him  into  an  exhausted  sleep  as 


Wings  221 

if  death  alone  could  climax  the  madness  of  his 
spirit — these  Dorn  knew  in  the  days  of  his  strength. 

But  the  days  of  disquiet  came,  confronting  him 
like  skeletons  in  the  midst  of  his  feastings  upon 
life.  The  ecstasy  he  felt  seemed  suddenly  to  turn 
itself  inward  and  demand  of  him  new  destinations. 
On  such  days  he  had  fallen  into  the  habit  of  going 
upon  swift  walks  through  the  less  crowded  streets 
of  the  city.  During  his  walking  he  would  mutter, 
"Whatcanldo?  What?  Nothing.  Notathing." 
As  if  secret  voices  were  debating  his  destiny. 

Restless,  vicious  spoken,  venting  his  strainings 
in  a  sky-rocket  burst  of  phrases  upon  the  inanity 
and  stupidity  of  his  fellow  creatures  for  which  he 
seemed  to  possess  an  almost  uncanny  vision,  he 
fled  through  these  days  like  the  victim  of  some 
spiritual  satyriasis.  No  longer  a  wind  at  his  heels 
riding  him  into  easy  heights,  he  found  himself 
weighted  down  with  his  love,  and  strangely  in- 
animate. 

The  direction  in  which  he  was  moving  loomed 
sterilely  before  him.  His  love  itself  seemed  a  fever- 
ishly sterile  thing.  His  work  upon  the  magazine, 
his  incessant  exchange  of  intolerant  adjectives 
with  admiring  strangers — these  became  absurdly 
petty  gestures,  absurdly  insufficient.  There  was 
something  else  to  do.  As  he  had  longed  for  Rachel 
in  the  black  days  before  their  coming  together,  he 
longed  now  for  this  something  else.  Without  name 
or  outline,  it  haunted  him.  Another  face  of  stars, 
but  this  time  beyond  his  power  to  understand. 


222  Erik  Dorn 

Yet  it  demanded  him,  as  Rachel  had  demanded 
him,  and  towards  it  he  turned  in  his  days  of  dis- 
quiet, inanimate  and  bewildered. 

"  I  must  find  something  to  do, "  he  explained  to 
himself,  "that  will  give  me  direction.  People 
must  have  a  monomania  as  a  track  for  their  living, 
or  else  there  is  no  living." 

Then,  as  was  his  custom,  he  would  begin  an  un- 
raveling of  the  notion. 

"Men  with  energies  in  them  wed  themselves 
quickly  to  some  consuming  project,  even  if  it's 
nothing  more  than  the  developing  of  a  fish  market. 
Rachel  isn't  a  destination.  She's  a  force  that  fills 
me  with  violence  and  I  have  no  direction  in  which 
to  live  to  use  this  violence.  I  don't  know  what  to 
do  with  myself.  So  I'm  compelled  to  live  in  the 
violence  itself.  In  a  storm.  A  kind  of  Walkyrie 
on  a  broomstick.  But,  good  God,  what  else  is 
there?  Sit  and  scribble  words  about  fictitious 
characters.  Bleat  out  rhapsodies.  Art  is  some- 
thing I  can  spit  out  in  conversation.  If  I  do  any- 
thing it's  got  to  be  something  too  difficult  for  me 
to  do.  My  damned  cleverness  puts  me  beyond 
artists  who  find  a  destination  for  their  energies  in 
the  struggle  to  achieve  the  thing  with  which  I 
begin.  If  not  art,  then  what?  War,  politics, 
finance.  All  surfaces  meaning  nothing.  If  I  did 
them  all  there'd  still  be  something  I  hadn't  done. 
I  want  something  that's  not  in  life.  Life's  too 
damned  insufficient.  I  want  something  out  of  it." 

Rachel  had  thought  at  first  that  his  fits  of  brood- 


Wings  223 

ing  restlessness  came  from  a  memory  of  Anna. 
But  phrases  he  had  blurted  out  half-consciously 
had  given  her  a  sense  of  their  causes.  The  thought 
of  Anna  had  died  in  him.  Neither  consciousness 
of  her  suffering  nor  memory  of  the  years  they  had 
lived  together  had  yet  awakened  in  him.  He  had 
been  moving  since  the  night  he  had  walked  out  of 
his  home  and  there  had  been  no  looking  back. 

Undergoing  a  seeming  expansion  of  his  powers, 
Erik  Dorn  had  become  a  startling,  fascinating 
figure  in  the  new  world  he  had  entered.  The 
flattery  of  men  almost  as  clever  as  himself,  the 
respect,  appreciation  of  political,  literary,  and 
vaguely  social  circles,  of  stolid  men  and  eccentric 
acquaintances,  were  continually  visited  upon  him. 
He  was  a  personality,  a  figure  to  enliven  dinner 
parties,  throw  a  glamour  and  a  fever  into  the 
enervated  routine  of  sets,  cliques,  and  circles. 

He  had  made  occasional  journey  ings  alone  and 
sometimes  with  Rachel  into  the  homes  of  chance 
acquaintances,  and  had  put  in  fitful  appearances 
at  the  various  excitements  pursued  by  the  city's 
more  radical  intelligentsia — little- theater  premiers, 
private  assemblings  of  shrewd,  bored  men  and 
women,  precious  concerts,  electric  discussions  of 
political  unrest.  From  all  such  adventurings  he 
came  away  with  a  sense  of  distaste.  Friendships, 
always  foreign  to  his  nature,  had  become  now 
almost  an  impossibility.  He  felt  himself  a  proces- 
sion of  adjectives  exploding  in  the  ears  of  strangers. 

With  Warren  Lockwood  alone  he  had  been  able 


224  Erik  Dorn 

to  achieve  a  contact.  In  the  presence  of  the 
novelist  there  was  a  complement  of  himself  both 
in  the  days  of  his  disquiet  and  strength.  Together 
they  took  to  frequenting  odd  parts  of  the  city, 
visiting  lonely  cafes  and  calling  upon  strangers 
known  to  the  novelist.  The  man's  virile  gentleness 
soothed  him.  He  was  never  tired  of  watching  the 
turns  of  his  naivete,  delighting  as  much  in  his 
friend's  unsophisticated  appreciation  of  the  arts 
as  in  the  vivid  simplicity  of  his  understanding  of 
people  and  events. 

He  had  finished  a  stormy  conference  with  the 
directors  of  the  magazine  on  the  subject  of  a  new 
editorial  policy  toward  Russia — new  editorial 
policies  toward  Russia  had  become  almost  the 
sole  preoccupation  of  the  New  Opinion — when 
Lockwood  arrived  at  the  office,  resplendent  in 
the  atrocities  of  a  new  green  hat  and  lavender 
necktie. 

ft  There's  a  fella  over  on  the  east  side  you  ought 
to  meet,"  Lockwood  explained.  "I  was  going 
over  there  and  thought  you'd  like  to  come  along." 

He  leaned  over,  seriously  confidential. 

"If  you  can  lay  off  a  while  in  this  business  of 
revolutionizing  the  liberal  thought  of  the  whole 
country,  Erik,  I'll  tell  you  something.  Between 
you  and  me,  this  man  we're  going  to  see  is  the 
greatest  artist  in  America.  I  know." 

Lockwood  waved  his  hand  casually  as  if  dismiss- 
ing once  and  for  all  an  avalanche  of  contradictions. 
Dorn  hesitated.  It  was  one  of  his  days  of  disquiet ; 


Wings  225 

and  he  had  left  a  note  with  Rachel  saying  he  would 
be  home  at  eight.     It  was  now  six. 

"If  you've  got  a  date,"  went  on  Lockwood, 
"call  it  off.  Lord,  man,  you  can't  afford  missing 
the  greatest  artist  in  the  world." 

Dorn  frowned.  He  might  telephone.  But  that 
would  mean  explanations  and  the  pleading  sound 
of  a  voice  saying,  "Of  course,  Erik."  He  would 
send  a  message,  and  scribbled  it  ,on  a  telegraph 
blank: 

"  I'll  be  home  late.    Don't  worry. 

"ERIK." 

"We'll  make  a  night  of  it,"  he  laughed. 

Lockwood  looked  at  him,  shrewdly  affectionate. 

"What  you  need,"  he  spoke,  "is  a  good  drink 
and  some  fat  street  woman  to  shake  you  out  of  it. 
You  look  kind  of  tied  up." 

"I  am, "  grinned  Dorn.  "Wound  up  and  ready 
to  bust." 

Lockwood  nodded  his  head  slowly. 

"Uh-huh, "  he  said,  as  if  turning  the  matter  over 
carefully  in  his  thought.  "Why  don't  you  buy  a 
new  hat  like  I  do  when  I  get  feeling  sort  of  upside 
down  ?  Buying  a  new  hat  or  tie  straightens  a  man 
out.  Come  on!"  He  laughed  suddenly.  "This 
artist's  name  is  Tony.  He's  an  old  man — seventy 
years  old." 

They  entered  the  street,  Lockwood  watching  his 
companion  with  dark,  fixed  eyes  as  if  he  were 
slowly  arriving  at  some  impersonal  diagnosis. 

"A  lot  of  fools, "  he  announced  abruptly,  waving 

IS 


226  Erik  Dorn 

his  hand  at  the  crowds.  "They  don't  know  that 
something  important 's  happening  in  Russia." 
He  pronounced  it  Rooshia.  Dorn  saw  his  eyes 
kindle  with  a  kindliness  as  he  denounced  the  rabble 
about  them. 

"What  do  you  figure  is  happening  in  Rooshia?" 
he  inquired  of  the  novelist. 

"I  don't  figure, "  smiled  Lockwood.  "I  feel  it. 
Something  important  that  these  newspaper  Neds 
around  this  town  haven't  got  any  conception  of. 
It's  what  old  Carl  calls  the  rising  of  the  proletaire." 
He  chuckled.  "Old  Carl's  sure  gone  daft  on  this 
proletaire  thing."  His  face  abruptly  hardened, 
the  rugged  features  becoming  set,  the  swart  eyes 
paying  a  far-away  homage.  "But  old  Carl's  a 
great  poet — the  greatest  in  America.  God,  but 
that  old  boy  can  write!" 

Dorn  nodded.  In  the  presence  of  the  novelist 
the  unrest  that  had  held  him  by  the  throat  through 
the  day  seemed  to  ebb.  There  was  companionship 
in  the  figure  beside  him.  They  walked  in  silence 
for  several  blocks.  The  day  was  growing  dark 
quickly  and  despite  the  crowds  in  the  streets,  there 
seemed  an  inactivity  in  the  air — the  wait  of  a 
storm. 

Into  a  ramshackle  building  on  the  corner  of  a 
vivaciously  ugly  street  Lockwood  led  his  friend  in 
quest  of  the  greatest  artist.  An  old  man  in  a  skull 
cap,  woolen  shirt,  baggy  trousers  and  carpet 
slippers  appeared  in  a  darkened  doorway.  With 
his  long  white  beard  he  stood  bent  and  rheumatic 


Wings  227 

before  them,  making  a  question  mark  in  the  gloom 
of  the  hall. 

' '  Hello,  Tony, ' '  Lockwood  greeted  him.  ' '  F ve 
brought  a  friend  of  mine  along  to  look  at  your 
works." 

The  old  man  extended  thin  fingers  and  nodded 
his  head.  Dorn  entered  a  large  room  that  reminded 
him  of  a  tombstone  factory.  Figures  in  clay,  some 
broken  and  cracked,  cluttered  up  its  floor  and 
walls.  In  a  corner  partly  hidden  behind  topsy- 
turvy busts  and  more  figures  was  a  cot  with  a 
blanket  over  it.  Dorn  after  several  minutes  of 
silence,  looked  inquiringly  at  his  friend.  The 
works  of  art,  despite  an  obvious  vigor  of  execution, 
were  openly  banal. 

"He's  got  some  more  in  the  basement,"  an- 
nounced Lockwood  with  an  air  of  triumph.  "And 
there's  some  stuck  away  with  the  family  upstairs. 
The  whole  street  here's  full  of  his  works." 

The  old  man  nodded. 

"He  doesn't  talk  much  English, "  went  on  Lock- 
wood.  "But  I'll  tell  you  about  him.  I  got  the 
story  from  him.  He's  the  greatest  artist  in  the 
world." 

As  Dorn  moved  politely  from  figure  to  figure, 
the  old  man  like  a  museum  monitor  at  his  heels, 
Lockwood  went  on  explaining  in  a  caressing  sing- 
song: 

"This  old  boy  came  to  New  York  when  he  was 
in  his  twenties.  And  he's  been  living  here  ever 
since  and  making  statues.  He's  working  right  now 


228  Erik  Dorn 

on  a  statue  of  some  general.  Been  working  for 
fifty  years  without  stopping,  and  there's  nobody 
in  this  town  ever  heard  of  him  or  come  near  him. 
Get  this  picture  of  this  old  boy,  Erik,  buried  in  this 
hole  for  fifty  years  making  statues.  Working 
away  day  after  day  without  anybody  coming  near 
him.  I  brought  a  sculptor  friend  of  mine  who  kept 
squinting  at  some  of  the  things  the  old  boy  did 
when  he  first  came  over  and  saying,  '  By  God,  this 
fella  was  an  artist  at  one  time.'  Get  the  picture 
of  this  smart-aleck  sculptor  friend  of  mine  saying 
this  old  boy  was  an  artist." 

The  eyes  of  Warren  Lockwood  grew  hard  and 
seemed  to  challenge.  He  extended  his  arm  and 
waved  his  hand  gently  in  a  further  challenge. 

''The  fools  in  this  town  let  this  old  boy  stay 
buried,"  he  whispered,  "but  he  fooled  them.  He 
kept  right  on  making  statues  and  giving  them 
away  to  the  folks  that  live  around  here  and  hiding 
them  in  the  basement  when  there  wasn't  anybody 
to  take  them." 

Lockwood  grasped  the  arm  of  his  friend  excitedly 
and  his  voice  became  high-pitched. 

"Don't  you  get  this  old  man?"  he  argued. 
"Don't  you  get  the  figure  of  him  as  an  artist? 
Lord,  man,  he's  the  greatest  artist  in  the  world,  I 
tell  you!" 

Dorn  nodded  his  head,  amused  and  disturbed 
by  the  novelist's  excitement.  The  old  sculptor  was 
standing  in  the  shadow  of  the  figures  piled  on  top 
of  each  other  against  the  wall.  He  wore  the  air  of 


Wings  229 

a  man  just  awakened  and  struggling  politely  to 
grasp  his  surroundings. 

"A  sort  of  altruistic  carpenter, "  thought  Dorn. 
"That's  what  Warren  calls  an  artist.  Works  dili- 
gently for  nothing." 

The  respect  and  awe  in  the  eyes  of  his  friend 
halted  him. 

"Yes,  I  get  him,"  he  added  aloud.  "Living 
with  a  dream  for  fifty  years." 

Lockwood  snorted  and  then  with  a  quiet  laugh 
answered:  "No,  that  isn't  it.  You're  not  an 
artist  yourself  so  you  can't  quite  get  the  sense  of 
it."  He  seemed  petulent  and  defeated. 

They  left  the  old  man's  studio  without  further 
talk.  It  had  started  to  rain.  Large  spaced  drops 
plumbed  a  gleaming  hypotenuse  between  the 
rooftops  and  the  streets.  They  paused  before  a 
basement  restaurant. 

"It  looks  dirty,"  said  Lockwood,  "but  let's  go 


in." 


Here  they  ordered  dinner.  During  their  eating 
the  noise  of  thunder  sounded  and  the  splash  of 
the  storm  drifted  in  through  the  dusty  basement 
windows.  A  thick- wristed,  red-fingered  waitress 
slopped  back  and  forth  between  their  table  and  an 
odorous  kitchen  door.  Lockwood  kept  his  eyes 
fastened  steadily  upon  the  nervous  features  of  his 
friend.  He  thought  as  the  silence  increased  be- 
tween them :  ' ' This  man's  got  something  the  mat- 
ter with  him." 

Gradually  an  uneasiness  came  over  the  novelist, 


230  Erik  Dorn 

his  sensitive  nerves  responding  to  the  disquiet  in 
the  smiling  eyes  opposite. 

4 'You're  kind  of  crazy, "  he  leaned  forward  and 
whispered  as  if  confiding  an  ominous,  impersonal 
secret.  " You've  got  the  eyes  of  a  man  kind  of 
crazy,  Erik." 

He  sat  back  in  his  chair,  his  hands  holding  the 
edge  of  the  table,  his  chin  tucked  down,  as  if  he 
were  ruminating,  narrow-eyed,  upon  some  involved 
business  proposition. 

"I  get  you  now,"  he  added  slowly.  "I'll  put 
you  in  a  book — a  crazy  man  who  kept  fooling  him- 
self by  imitating  sane  people." 

Dorn  nodded. 

"Insanity  would  be  a  relief,"  he  answered. 
"Come  on." 

He  stood  up  quickly  and  looked  down  at  his 
friend. 

"Let's  keep  going.  I've  got  something  in  me  I 
want  to  get  rid  of." 

In  the  doorway  the  friends  halted.  The  grave, 
melodious  shout  of  the  rain  filled  the  night.  The 
streets  had  become  dark,  attenuated  pools.  The 
rain  falling  illuminated  the  hidden  faces  of  the 
buildings  and  silvered  the  air  with  whirling  lines. 

As  they  stood  facing  the  downpour  Dorn 
thought,  "Rachel's  waiting  for  me.  Why  don't  I 
go  to  her?  But  I'd  only  make  her  sad.  Better 
let  it  get  out  of  me  in  the  rain." 

Holding  his  friend's  arm  he  stood  staring  at  the 
storm  over  the  city.  Through  the  sparkle  and 


Wings  231 

fume  of  the  rain-colored  night  the  lights  of  caf6 
signs  burned  like  golden-lettered  banners  flung 
stiffly  into  the  downpour.  About  the  lights  floated 
patches  of  yellow  mist  through  which  the  rain 
swarmed  in  flurries  of  gleaming  moths.  There 
were  lights  of  doors  and  windows  beneath  the 
burning  signs.  The  remainder  of  the  street  was 
lost  in  a  wilderness  of  rain  that  bubbled  and  raced 
over  the  pavements  in  an  endless  detonation. 

He  spoke  with  a  sudden  softness:  "I  didn't  get 
your  artist,  Warren,  but  you  don't  get  this  storm. 
It's  noise  and  water  to  you." 

The  novelist  answered  with  a  sagacious  nod. 

"There's  something  alive  in  a  night  like  this," 
Dorn  went  on,  "something  that  isn't  a  part  of  life." 

He  pulled  his  friend  out  of  the  doorway.  They 
walked  swiftly,  their  shoes  spurting  water  and  the 
rain  dripping  from  their  clothes.  Dorn  felt  an 
untightening.  His  eyes  hailed  the  scene  as  if  in 
greeting  of  a  friend.  He  became  aware  of  its  detail. 
He  smiled,  remembering  the  way  in  which  he  had 
been  used  to  hide  his  longing  for  Rachel  in  the 
desperate  consciousness  of  scenes  about  him. 
Now  it  was  something  else  he  was  hiding.  Be- 
neath his  feet  he  watched  the  silver-tipped  pool  of 
the  pavement.  Gleaming  in  its  depths  swam  re- 
flections of  burning  lamps,  like  the  yellow  script 
of  another  and  wraith-like  world  staring  up  at  him 
out  of  a  nowhere.  The  rest  was  darkness  and  bil- 
lowy stripes  of  water.  People  had  vanished. 
Later  a  sound  of  thunder  crawled  out  of  the  sky. 


232  Erik  Dorn 

A  vein  of  lightning  opened  the  night.  Against  its 
blue  pallor  the  street  and  its  buildings  etched 
themselves. 

"Stiff,  unreal,  like  a  stage  scene,"  murmured 
Dorn.  ' '  Another  world. ' ' 

The  rain  flung  itself  for  an  instant  in  great 
ghostly  sheets  out  of  the  lighted  spaces.  He 
caught  a  glimpse  in  the  distance  of  a  hunched, 
moving  figure  like  some  tiny  wanderer  through 
tortuous  fields.  Then  darkness  resumed,  seizing 
the  street.  A  wind  entered  the  night  outlining 
itself  in  the  wild  undulations  of  the  rain  reaching 
for  the  pavements. 

Dorn  forgot  his  companion,  as  they  pressed  on. 
Disheveled  rain  ghosts  crowded  around  him.  The 
fever  that  had  burned  in  him  during  the  day 
seemed  to  have  become  a  part  of  the  storm.  The 
leap  and  hollow  blaze  of  the  lightnings  gave  him  a 
companionship.  His  eyes  stared  into  the  inani- 
mate bursts  of  pale  violet  outlines  in  the  dark. 
His  breath  drank  in  the  spice  of  water-laden  winds. 
The  stumble  of  thunder,  the  lash  and  churn  of 
rain  were  companions.  The  something  else  that 
haunted  him  was  in  the  storm.  He  turned  to 
Lockwood,  who  seemed  to  be  lagging,  and  shouted 
in  his  ear : 

"Great,  eh?  Altar  fires  and  the  racket  of  un- 
known gods." 

Lockwood,  his  face  filmed  with  water,  grunted 
indignantly: 

"Let's  get  out  of  this." 


Wings  233 

The  night  was  growing  wilder.  Dorn's  eyes 
bored  into  the  vapors  and  steam  of  the  rain. 

"We're  in  a  good  street,"  he  cried  again.  "A 
nigger  street." 

A  blinding  gust  of  light  brought  them  to  a  halt. 
Thunder  burst  a  horror  of  sound  through  its  dead 
glare.  Dorn  stiffened  and  stared  as  in  a  dream  at  a 
face  floating  behind  the  glass  of  a  door.  A  woman's 
face  contorted  into  a  stark  grimace  of  rapture.  Its 
teeth  stood  out  white  and  skull-like  against  the  red 
of  an  open  mouth. 

Silence  and  darkness  seized  the  street.  Rain 
poured.  The  sound  of  a  laugh  like  some  miniature 
echo  of  the  tumult  that  had  torn  the  night  drifted 
to  them.  Lockwood  had  started  for  the  door. 

"Come  on, "  he  called,  "this  is  crazy." 

Dorn  followed  him.  The  streaming  door  opened 
as  they  approached  and  two  figures  darted  out. 
They  were  gone  in  an  instant  and  in  pursuit  of 
them  rushed  a  rollicking  lurch  of  sound.  Dorn 
caught  again  the  shrill  staccato  of  the  laugh,  and 
the  door  closed  behind  them. 

Dancing  bodies  were  spinning  among  the  tables. 
Shouting,  swinging  noises  and  a  bray  of  music 
spurted  unintelligibly  against  the  ears  of  the  new- 
comers. A  chlorinated  mist,  acrid  to  the  eye,  and 
burning  to  the  nose,  crawled  about  the  room. 
Dorn,  followed  by  Lockwood,  groped  his  way 
through  the  confusion  toward  a  small  vacant  table 
against  a  wall.  From  here  they  watched  in  silence. 

A  can-can  was  in  progress.    The  dancers,  black 


234  Erik  Dorn 

and  white  faces  glued  together,  arms  twined  about 
each  other's  bodies,  tumbled  through  the  smoke. 
Waiters  balancing  black  trays  laden  with  colored 
glasses  sifted  through  the  scene.  At  the  tables 
men  and  women  with  faces  out  of  focus  sat  drink- 
ing and  shouting.  Niggers,  prostitutes,  louts. 
The  slant  of  red  mouths  opened  laughters.  Hands 
and  throats  drifted  in  violent  fragments  through 
the  mist.  The  reek  of  wine  and  steaming  clothes, 
the  sting  of  perspiring  perfumes  and  the  odors  of 
women's  bodies  fumed  over  the  tumble  of  heads. 
Against  the  scene  a  jazz  band  flung  a  whine  and  a 
stumble  of  tinny  sounds.  Nigger  musicians  with 
silver  instruments  glued  to  their  lips  sat  on  a  plat- 
form at  the  far  end  of  the  room.  They  danced  in 
their  chairs  as  they  played,  swinging  their  instru- 
ments in  crazy  circles.  A  broken,  lurching  music 
came  from  them,  a  nasal  melody  that  moaned 
among  the  laughters. 

Dorn's  fingers  lay  gripped  about  the  arm  of  his 
friend.  His  senses  caught  the  rhythm  of  the  scene. 
His  eyes  stared  at  the  dancing  figures,  blond  heads 
riveted  against  black  satin  cheeks ;  bodies  gesturing 
their  lusts  to  the  quick  whine  and  stumble  of  the 
music;  eyes  opening  like  mouths. 

"God,  what  an  orgie!"  he  whispered.  "Look 
at  the  thing.  It's  insane.  A  nigger  hammering 
a  scarlet  phallus  against  a  cymbal  moon." 

His  words  vanished  in  the  din  and  Lockwood 
remained  with  eyes  drawn  in  and  hard.  When  he 
turned  to  his  friend  he  found  him  excitedly  pound- 


Wings  235 

ing  his  fist  on  the  table  and  bawling  for  a  waiter. 
A  man,  seemingly  asleep  amid  confusions,  appeared 
and  took  his  order. 

"There's  a  woman  in  here  I've  got  to  find," 
Dorn  shouted. 

"You're  crazy,  man." 

"I  saw  her,"  he  persisted,  talking  close  to  his 
friend's  ear.  "I  saw  her  face  in  the  door.  You 
wait  here." 

Lockwood  seized  his  arm  and  tried  to  hold  him, 
but  he  jerked  away  and  was  lost  in  a  pattern  of 
dancing  bodies.  Lockwood  watching  him  disap- 
pear, frowned.  He  felt  a  sudden  uncertainty 
toward  his  friend,  a  fear  as  if  he  had  launched 
himself  into  a  dark  night  with  a  murderer  for  a 
companion. 

"He's  crazy, ' '  he  thought.  ' ' I  ought  to  get  him 
out  of  here  before  anything  happens." 

He  sat  fumbling  nervously  with  the  stem  of  a 
wine-glass.  Outside,  the  rain  chattered  in  the 
darkness  and  the  alto  of  the  wind  came  in  long 
organ  notes  into  the  din  of  the  cafe.  He  caugjit 
sight  of  Dorn  pulling  an  unholy-looking  woman 
through  the  pack  of  the  room. 

"Here  she  is — our  lady  of  pain!" 

Dorn  thrust  the  creature  viciously  into  a  seat 
beside  Lockwood.  She  dropped  with  a  scream  of 
laughter.  The  music  of  the  nigger  orchestra  had 
stopped  and  an  emptiness  flooded  the  place.  Dorn 
bellowed  for  another  glass.  Lockwood  looked 
slowly  at  the  creature  beside  him.  She  was  watch- 


236  Erik  Dorn 

ing  Dorn.  In  the  swarthy  depths  of  her  eyes 
moved  threads  of  scarlet.  Beneath  their  lashes 
her  skin  was  darkened  as  if  by  bruises.  An  odd 
sultry  light  glowed  over  the  discolorations.  Her 
mouth  had  shut  and  her  cheeks  were  without 
curves,  following  the  triangular  corpse-like  lines 
of  her  skull.  Her  lips,  like  bits  of  vermilion  paper, 
stared  as  from  an  idol's  face.  She  was  regarding 
Dorn  with  a  smile. 

He  had  grown  erratic  in  his  gestures.  His  eyes 
seemed  incapable  of  focusing  themselves.  They 
darted  about  the  room,  running  away  from  him. 
The  woman's  smile  persisted  and  he  turned  his 
glance  abruptly  at  her.  The  red  flesh  of  her  opened 
mouth  and  throat  confronted  him  as  another  of  her 
screaming  laughs  burst.  The  laugh  ended  and  her 
gleaming  eyes  swimming  in  a  gelatinous  mist  held 
him. 

"A  reptilean  sorcery,"  he  whispered  to  Lock- 
wood,  and  smiled.  "The  face  of  a  malignant 
Pierrette.  A  diabolic  clown.  Look  at  it.  I  saw  it 
in  the  lightning  outside.  She  wears  a  mask.  Do 
you  get  her?"  He  paused  mockingly.  Lockwood 
shifted  away  from  the  woman.  Erik  was  drunk. 
Or  crazy.  But  the  woman,  thank  God,  had  eyes 
only  for  him.  She  remained,  as  he  talked,  with  her 
sulphurous  eyes  unwaveringly  upon  his  face. 

"She's  not  a  woman,"  he  went  on  in  a  purring 
voice.  "She's  a  lust.  No  brain.  No  heart.  A 
stark  unhuman  piece  of  flesh  with  a  shark's  hunger 
inside  it." 


Wings  237 

rle  leaned  forward  and  took  one  of  her  hands  as 
Lockwood  whispered, 

"Christ,  man,  let's  get  out  of  here." 

The  woman's  fingers,  dry  and  quivering, 
scratched  against  Dorn's  palm.  He  felt  them  as  a 
hot  breath  in  his  blood. 

"What's  the  matter,  Warren?"  he  laughed, 
emptying  a  wine-glass.  "  I  like  this  gal.  She  suits 
me.  A  devourer  of  men.  Look  at  her!" 

He  laughed  and  glared  at  his  friend.  Lockwood 
closed  his  eyes  nervously. 

"I've  got  a  headache  in  this  damned  place,"  he 
muttered. 

"Wait  a  minute."  Dorn  seized  his  arm.  "I 
want  to  talk.  I  feel  gabby.  My  lady  friend  doesn't 
understand  words."  The  sulphurous  eyes  glowed 
caresses  over  him.  "You  remember  the  thing  in 
Rabelais  about  women — insatiable,  devouring, 
hungering  in  their  satieties.  The  prowling  animal. 
Well,  here  it  is.  Alive.  Not  in  print.  She's  alive 
with  something  deeper  than  life.  Wheels  of  flesh 
grinding  her  blood  into  a  hunger  for  ecstasies. 
She's  a  mate  for  me.  Come  on,  little  one." 

He  sprang  from  the  table,  pulling  the  woman 
after  him. 

"Wait  here,  Warren, "  he  called,  moving  toward 
the  door.  It  opened,  letting  in  a  shout  and  sweep 
of  rain,  and  they  were  gone. 

"A  crazy  man,"  muttered  the  novelist,  and 
remained  fumbling  with  the  stem  of  his  glass. 

Outside   Dorn  held  the  body  of  the  woman 


238  Erik  Dorn 

against  him  as  they  hurried  through  the  storm. 
Her  flesh,  like  the  touch  of  a  third  person,  struck 
through  his  wet  clothes. 

"Where  we  going?"  he  yelled  at  her. 

She  thrust  out  an  arm. 

"Up  here." 

They  came  breathless  up  a  flight  of  stairs  into  a 
reeking  room  lighted  by  a  gas  jet. 

In  the  cafe,  Lockwood  waited  till  the  music 
started  again.  Then  he  rose  and,  slapping  his 
soggy  hat  on  his  head,  walked  out  of  the  place. 
The  rain,  sweeping  steadily  against  the  earth,  held 
him  prisoner  in  the  doorway.  He  stood  muttering 
to  himself  of  his  friend  and  his  craziness.  Gone 
wild!  Crazy  wild  with  a  mad  woman  in  the  rain. 
Long  ago  he  might  have  done  it  himself.  Yes,  he 
knew  the  why  of  it.  The  rain  fuming  before  him 
made  him  sleepy.  He  leaned  against  the  place  and 
waited.  The  storm  faded  slowly  into  a  quiet 
patter.  Starting  for  the  pavement,  Lockwood 
paused.  A  hatless  figure  had  jumped  out  of  a  door- 
way across  the  street  and  was  running  toward 
him. 

"It's  Erik,*'  he  muttered,  and  hurried  to  meet 
him. 

Dorn,  laughing,  his  clothes  torn  and  his  face 
smeared  with  blood  under  his  eye,  drew  near.  He 
took  his  friend's  arm  and  walked  him  swiftly  away. 
At  the  corner  Dorn  stopped  and  regarded  the 
novelist. 


Wings  239 

"I've  had  a  look  at  hell,"  he  whispered,  and 
with  a  laugh  hurried  off  alone.  Lockwood 
watched  him  moving  swiftly  down  the  street,  and 
yawned. 


CHAPTER  IV 

rwas  near  midnight.    Rachel's  eyes,  brightened 
with  tears,   watched   her   lover   bathing   his 
face. 

"It  seemed  so  long,"  she  murmured,  "till  you 


came." 


"That  damned  Warren  Lockwood  led  me 
astray,"  he  smiled.  He  dried  his  face  and  came 
toward  her.  She  dropped  to  the  floor  beside  him 
as  he  sat  down  and  pressed  her  cheeks  against  his 
knees.  His  hands  moved  tenderly  through  her 
loosened  hair. 

"You  told  me  to  be  careful  about  getting  run 
over,"  she  smiled  sadly,  "and  you  go  out  and  get 
all  cut  up  in  a  brawl.  Oh,  Erik,  please — something 
might  have  happened." 

"  Nothing  happened,  dearest." 

She  asked  no  further  questions  but  remained 
with  her  face  against  his  knees.  This  was  Rachel 
whose  hair  he  was  stroking.  Dorn  smiled  at  the 
thought.  After  a  silence  she  resumed,  her  voice 
softened  with  emotion : 

"Erik,  I've  been  lying  to  you — about  my  love. 
It's  different  than  I  said  it  was.  I've  said  always 
what  you've  wanted  me  to  say.  You've  always 
wanted  me  to  be  something  else  than  a  woman — • 

240 


Wings  241 

something  like  a  dream.  But  I  can't.  I  love  you 
as — as  Anna  loved  you.  Oh,  I  want  to  be  with  you 
forever  and  have  children.  I'm  nothing  else. 
You  are.  I  can't  be  like  you.  For  me  there's  only 
love  for  you  and  nothing  beyond." 

" Dear  one,"  he  answered,  "there's  nothing 
else  for  me." 

"  Now  you're  telling  me  lies, ' '  she  wept.  ' '  There 
is  something  I  can't  give  you ;  and  that  you  must 
go  looking  for  somewhere  else." 

"  No,  Rachel.    I  love  you." 

"As  you  loved  Anna — once." 

4 'Don't!  I  never  loved  Anna — or  anyone.  Or 
anything." 

"I  can't  help  it,  Erik.  Forgive  me,  please.  I 
love  you  so.  Don't  you  see  how  I  love  you.  I 
keep  trying  to  be  something  besides  myself  and  to 
give  other  names  to  the  things  I  feel.  But  they're 
only  sentimental  things.  My  dreams  are  only  sen- 
timental dreams — of  your  kissing  me,  holding  me, 
being  my  husband.  Oh,  go  way  from  me,  Erik, 
before  I  make  you  hate  me!  You  thought  I  was 
different.  And  I  did  too.  I  was  different.  But 
you've  changed  me.  Women  are  all  the  same  when 
they  love.  Differences  go  away." 

She  looked  up  at  him  with  tear-running  eyes. 

"  Different  than  other  people !  But  now  I'm  the 
same.  I  love  you  as  any  other  woman  would. 
Only  perhaps  a  little  more.  With  my  whole  soul 
and  life." 

"Foolish  to  talk,"  he  whispered  back  to  her. 

16 


242  Erik  Dorn 

"Words  only  scratch  at  things.  I  love  you  as  if  I 
had  never  seen  you  or  kissed  you." 

"But  I'm  not  a  dream,  Erik.  Oh,  it  sounds 
silly.  But  I  want  you." 

He  raised  her  and  held  her  lithe  body  close  to 
him.  The  feeling  that  he  was  unreal,  that  Rachel 
was  unreal,  rested  in  his  thought.  There  was  a 
mist  about  things  that  clung  to  them,  that  clung 
about  the  joyousness  in  his  heart. 

1 1  There's  nothing  else, ' '  he  whispered.  ' '  Love  is 
enough.  It  burns  up  everything  else  and  leaves  a 
mist." 

His  arms  tightened. 

"Erik  dear,  I'm  afraid." 

His  kiss  brought  a  peace  over  her  face.  She  had 
waited  for  it.  She  looked  up  and  laughed. 

"  You  love  me?  Yes,  Erik  loves  me.  Loves  me. 
I  know." 

She  watched*  his  eyes  as  he  spoke.  The  eyes  of 
God.  They  remained  open  to  her.  She  began  to 
tremble  and  her  naked  arms  moved  blindly  to- 
ward his  shoulders. 

"This  is  my  world,"  she  whispered.  "I  know, 
Erik.  I  know  everything.  You  are  too  big  for 
love  to  hold.  The  sun  doesn't  fill  the  whole  world. 
There  are  always  dark  places.  I  know.  Don't 
hide  from  me,  lover." 

She  smiled  and  closed  her  eyes  as  her  lips  reached 
toward  him. 

The  eyes  of  Erik  Dorn  remained  open  and  staring 
out  of  the  window.  There  was  still  rain  in  the  night. 


CHAPTER  V 

ERIK  DORN  to  Rachel,  September,  1918: 
"...  and  to-night  I  remember  you  are 
beautiful,  and  I  desire  you.  My  arms  are  empty 
and  there  is  nothing  for  my  eyes  to  look  at.  Are 
you  still  afraid.  Look,  more  than  a  year  has  gone 
and  nothing  has  changed.  You  are  the  far-away 
one,  the  dream  figure,  and  my  heart  comes  on 
wings  to  you.  ...  I  write  with  difficulty.  What 
language  is  there  to  talk  to  you?  How  does  one 
converse  with  a  dream?  Idiot  phrases  rant  across 
the  paper  like  little  fat  actors  flourishing  tin  swords. 
I've  come  to  distrust  words.  There  are  too  many 
of  them.  Yet  I  keep  fermenting  with  words.  In- 
terlopers. Busybody  strangers.  I  can't  think  .  .  . 
because  of  them.  .  .  .  Alas !  if  I  could  keep  my 
vocabulary  out  of  our  love  we  would  both  be  better 
off.  Foolish  chatter.  I  thought  when  I  sat  down 
to  write  to  you  that  the  sadness  of  your  absence 
would  overcome  me.  Instead,  I  am  amused. 
Vaguely  joyous.  And  at  the  thought  of  you  I  have 
an  impulse  to  laugh.  You  are  like  that.  A  day 
like  a  thousand  years  has  passed.  Dead-born 
hours  that  did  not  end.  Chill,  empty  streets  and 
the  memory  of  you  like  a  solitude  in  which  I  sat 
mumbling  to  phantoms.  And  now  in  the  darkness 

243 


244  Erik  Dorn 

my  heart  sickens  with  desire  for  you  and  the  night 
sharpens  its  claws  upon  my  heart.  Yet  there  is 
laughter.  Words  laugh  in  my  head.  The  torment 
I  feel  is  somehow  a  part  of  joyousness.  The  claws 
of  the  night  bring  somehow  a  caress.  Even  to 
weep  for  you  is  like  some  dark  happiness  whose 
lips  are  too  fragile  to  smile.  Dear  one,  the  dream 
of  you  still  lives — an  old  friend  now,  a  familiar 
star  that  I  watch  endlessly.  You  see  there  are 
even  no  new  words.  For  once  before  I  told  you 
that.  It  was  night — snowing.  We  walked  to- 
gether. I  remember  you  always  as  vanishing  and 
leaving  the  light  of  your  face  burning  before  my 
eyes.  I  shall  always  love  you.  Why  are  you 
afraid  ?  Why  do  you  write  vague  doubts  into  your 
letters ?  I  will  be  with  you  soon.  You  are  a  world, 
and  the  rest  of  life  is  a  mist  that  surrounds  you. 
...  I  have  nothing  to  write.  I  discover  this  as 
I  sit  staring  at  the  paper.  I  remember  that  a  year 
has  passed,  that  many  years  remain  to  pass.  Dear 
one,  I  know  only  that  I  love  you,  and  words  are 
strangers  between  us. " 

Rachel  to  Erik,  September  end,  1918: 
"  .  .  .  when  I  went  away  you  were  unhappy 
and  restless.  Now  that  I  have  gone  you  are  again 
happy  and  calm.  Oh,  you're  so  cruel!  Your  love 
is  so  cruel  to  me.  I  sit  here  all  day,  a  foolishly 
humble  exile,  waiting  for  you.  I  keep  watching 
the  sea  and  sometimes  I  try  to  feel  pain.  When 
your  letter  comes  I  spend  the  day  reading  it.  ... 


Wings  245 

I  am  beautiful  and  you  desire  me.  Oh,  to  think 
me  beautiful  and  to  desire  me,  suffices.  You  do 
not  come  where  I  am.  Nothing  has  changed,  you 
write  with  a  joyous  cruelty.  In  your  lonely  nights 
your  dream  of  me  still  brings  you  torments  and  I 
am  a  star  that  you  watch  endlessly.  I  laugh  too, 
but  out  of  bitterness.  Because  what  you  write  is 
no  longer  true  and  we  both  have  known  it  for  long. 
I  am  no  longer  a  dream  or  a  star,  but  a  woman  who 
loves  you.  Yes,  nothing  has  changed,  except  me. 
And  you  remedy  that  by  sending  me  away.  When 
you  send  me  away  I  too  become  unchanged  in 
your  thought.  I  am  again  like  I  was  on  the 
night  we  parted  in  the  white  park  and  you  can 
love  me — a  memory  of  me — that  remains  like  a 
star.  .  .  . 

"But  here  I  am  in  this  lonely  little  sea  village. 
There  is  no  dream  for  me.  I  am  empty  without 
you  and  I  lie  at  night  ^nd  weep  till  my  heart 
breaks,  wondering  when  you  will  come.  It  were 
better  if  I  were  dead.  I  whisper  to  myself,  'you 
must  not  write  him  to  come  to  you,  because  he  is 
too  busy  loving  you.  He  weeps  before  the  ghost  of 
you.  He  sits  beside  an  old  dream.  You  must  not 
interrupt  him.  Oh,  my  lover,  do  you  find  me  so 
much  less  than  the  dream  of  me,  that  you  must 
send  me  away  in  order  to  love  me?  My  doubts? 
Are  they  doubts?  We  have  grown  apart  in  the 
year.  On  the  night  it  snowed  and  I  went  away 
from  you  you  said,  'people  bury  their  love  behind 
lighted  windows.  .  .  . '  Dearest,  dearest,  of  what 


246  Erik  Dorn 

do  I  complain?  Of  your  ecstasies  and  torments  of 
which  I  am  not  a  part,  but  a  cause?  Forgive  me. 
I  adore  you.  I  am  so  lonely  .and  such  a  nobody 
without  you.  And  I  want  you  to  write  to  me  that 
you  long  for  me,  to  be  with  me,  to  caress  me  and 
talk  to  me.  And  instead  you  send  phrases  analyz- 
ing your  joyousness.  Oh,  things  have  changed. 
I  am  no  linger  Rachel,  but  a  woman.  I  feel  so 
little  and  helpless  when  I  think  of  you.  Strangers 
can  talk  to  you  and  look  at  you  but  I  must  sit  here 
in  exile  while  you  entertain  yourself  with  memories 
of  me.  You  are  cruel,  dear  one,  and  I  have  become 
too  cowardly  not  to  mind.  This  is  because  I  have 
found  happiness — all  the  happiness  I  desire — and 
hold  it  tremblingly.  And  you  have  not  found 
happiness  but  are  still  in  flight  toward  your  far- 
away one,  your  dream  figure.  I  cannot  write  more. 
I  worship  you  and  my  heart  is  full  of  tears.  I  will 
sit  humbly  and  look  at  the  sea  until  you  come." 

Rachel  to  Frank  Brander,  September: 
"...  I  answer  your  letter  only  because  I  am 
afraid  you  would  misunderstand  my  silence.  I 
send  your  letter  back  because  I  cannot  throw  it 
away.  It  would  make  the  sea  unclean.  As  you 
point  out,  I  am  the  mistress  of  Erik  Dorn  and  he 
may  some  day  grow  tired  of  me,  at  which  time  you 
are  prepared  to  be  my  friend  and  protect  me  from 
the  world.  I  will  put  your  application  on  file,  Mr. 
Brander,  if  there  is  a  part  of  my  mind  filthy  enough 
to  remember  it. " 


Wings  247 

Rachel  to  Emil  Tesla: 

"  .  .  ,  I  was  glad  to  hear  from  you.  But  please 
do  not  write  any  more.  I  am  too  happy  to  read 
your  letters.  I  never  want  to  draw  pictures  for 
The  Cry  again.  I  hope  you  will  be  freed  soon.  I 
can  think  of  nothing  to  write  to  you. " 

Erik  Dorn  to  Rachel,  November,  1918: 
"DEAREST  ONE! 

"Beneath  my  window  the  gentle  Jabberwock 
has  twined  colored  tissue-paper  about  his  ears  and 
gone  mad.  He  shrieks,  he  whistles,  he  blows  a 
horn.  The  war,  beloved,  appears  to  have  ended 
this  noon  and  the  Jabberwock  is  endeavoring  to 
disgorge  four  and  a  half  years  in  a  single  shriek. 
'The  war/  says  the  Jabberwock,  in  his  own  way, 
'is  over.  It  was  a  rotten  war,  nasty  and  hateful, 
as  all  wars  are  rotten  and  hateful,  and  everything 
I've  said  and  done  hinting  at  the  contrary  has  been 
a  lie  and  I'm  so  full  of  lies  I  must  shriek. ' 

"Anybody  but  a  Jabberwock,  dear  one,  would 
have  died  of  apoplexy  hours  ago.  But  the  Jabber- 
wock is  immortal.  Alas!  there  is  something  of 
pathos  in  the  spectacle.  Our  gentle  friend  with 
tissue-paper  around  his  ears  prostrates  himself  be- 
fore another  illusion — peace.  Says  the  shriek  of  the 
Jabberwock  beneath  my  window,  '  The  Hun  is  de- 
stroyed. The  menace  to  humanity  is  laid  low.  The 
powers  of  darkness  are  dispelled  by  the  breath  of 
God  and  the  machine-guns  of  our  brave  soldats.  The 
war  that  is  to  end  war  is  over.  Hail,  blessed  peace ! ' 


248  Erik  Dorn 

"Why  do  I  write  such  arid  absurdities  to  you? 
But  I  feel  an  impulse  to  scribble  wordly  words,  to 
stand  in  a  silk  hat  beside  the  statue  of  Liberty  and 
gaze  out  upon  the  Atlantic  with  a  Carlylian  pen- 
siveness.  Idle  political  tears  flow  from  my  brain. 
For  it  is  obvious  that  the  war  the  Jabberwock  has 
so  nobly  waged  has  been  a  waste  of  steel  and  pow- 
der. Standing  now  on  his  eight  million  graves 
with  the  tissue-paper  of  Victory  twined  about  his 
ears,  the  Jabberwock  is  a  somewhat  ghastly,  humor- 
ous figure.  He  has,  alas!  shot  the  wrong  man. 
To-morrow  there  will  be  an  inquest  in  Paris  and 
the  Jabberwock  will  rub  his  eyes  and  discover  that 
the  corpse,  God  forgive  him,  is  that  of  a  brother 
and  friend  and  that  the  Powers  of  Darkness  threat- 
ening humanity  are  advancing  upon  him  .  .  .  out 
of  Moscow.  I  muse  .  .  .  yes,  it  was  a  good  war. 
War  is  never  pathetic,  never  wholly  a  waste. 
Maturity  no  less  than  childhood  must  have  its 
circuses.  But  the  Jabberwock  .  .  .  Ah!  the 
Jabberwock  .  .  .  the  soul  of  man  celebrating  the 
immortal  triumph  of  righteousness  .  .  .  the  good 
Don  Quixote  has  valiantly  slain  another  windmill 
and  your  Sancho  Panza  shakes  his  head  in  wistful 
amusement. 

"I  did  not  send  you  this  letter  yesterday  and 
many  things  have  happened  since  I  wrote  it.  I  will 
see  you  in  a  few  days.  It  has  been  decided  that  I 
go  to  Germany  for  the  magazine.  Edwards  insists. 
So  do  the  directors,  trusting  gentlemen.  I  will  stop 
at  Washington  and  try  to  get  two  passports  and 


Wings  249 

then  come  on  to  you,  and  we  will  wait  together 
until  the  passports  are  issued.  Another  week  of 
imbecile  political  maneuverings  in  behalf  of  the 
passports  and  I  will  again  be  your  lover, 

"ERIK." 


CHAPTER  VI 

"  YV7E'VE  been  separated  almost  three  months," 

W  he  thought,  looking  out  of  the  train  win- 
dow. "I'll  see  her  soon." 

There  were  four  men  in  the  smoking-compart- 
ment.  They  were  discussing  the  end  of  the  war. 
Dorn  listened  inattentively.  He  was  remembering 
another  ride  to  Rachel.  Looking  out  of  a  train 
window  as  now.  Whirling  through  space.  A 
locomotive  whistle  wailing  in  the  prairies  at  night 
like  the  sound  of  winds  against  his  heart. 

The  memories  of  the  ride  drifted  through  his 
mind.  He  saw  himself  again  with  the  tumult  of 
another  day  sweeping  toward  Rachel.  What  had 
he  felt  then?  Whatever  it  was,  it  was  gone.  For 
he  felt  nothing  now  but  a  sadness.  He  had  tele- 
graphed. She  would  be  waiting,  her  face  alight, 
her  hands  trembling.  He  had  started  from  Wash- 
ington elatedly  enough.  But  now  in  the  smoking- 
compartment  where  the  men  were  discussing  the 
end  of  the  war  he  felt  no  elation.  He  was  thinking, 
"It'll  be  difficult  when  we  see  each  other."  He 
became  aware  that  he  was  actually  shrinking  from 
the  meeting.  The  voices  of  the  men  about  him  be- 
gan to  annoy  and  he  returned  to  his  seat  in  the  train. 

Early  evening.  Another  two  hours  and  the  train 
250 


Wings  251 

would  stop  to  let  him  off.  Dear,  dear  Rachel! 
He  had  wept  tormented  by  a  loneliness  for  her. 
Now  he  was  coming  to  her  with  sadness.  There 
had  been  another  ride  when  he  had  come  to  her  in 
a  halloo  of  storms.  Things  change. 

The  porter  brushed  him  and  removed  his  grips 
to  the  platform.  The  far  lights  of  a  village  sprin- 
kled themselves  feebly  in  the  darkness.  This  was 
where  Rachel  was  waiting. 

Dorn  stepped  from  the  train.  It  became  another 
world,  lighted  and  human.  He  looked  about  the 
dingy  little  station.  Rachel  was  walking  toward 
him. 

"She  looks  strange  and  out  of  place,"  he 
thought. 

They  embraced.  Her  kisses  covering  his  lips 
delighted  him  unexpectedly.  He  found  himself 
walking  close  to  her  in  the  night  and  feeling  happy. 
They  entered  a  darkened  wooden  house  and  Rachel 
led  the  way  up-stairs. 

"I  can't  talk,  Erik." 

She  held  his  hand  against  her  cheek. 

"No,  don't  kiss  me.  Let  me  look  at  you.  Sit 
over  here.  I  must  look  at  you." 

She  laughed  softly,  but  her  eyes,  unsmiling, 
stared  at  him.  He  remained  silent.  The  sadness 
that  had  fallen  upon  him  in  the  train  returned  now 
like  a  hurt  in  his  heart.  He  had  expected  it  to 
vanish  at  the  sight  of  her.  But  her  kisses  had  only 
hidden  it.  She  came  to  his  side  after  a  pause  and 
whispered  gently, 


252  Erik  Dorn 

' '  Perhaps  it  would  have  been  better  if  you  hadn't 
come,  dearest.  I've  become  almost  used  to  being 
alone/' 

He  embraced  her  and  for  the  moment  the  sad- 
ness was  hidden  again.  Rachel's  hands  crept 
avidly  to  his  face,  holding  his  cheeks  with  hot 
fingers. 

' ' Erik,  oh,  Erik,  do  you  love  me  ?  I'm  not  afraid 
to  hear.  Tell  me." 

"Yes,  dear  one.    You  are  everything." 

"What  makes  you  cry?" 

He  kissed  her  lips. 

"I  don't  know, "  he  whispered.  "Only  it's  been 
so  long." 

"Oh,  you  are  so  sad." 

Her  voice  had  grown  thin.  Her  eyes,  dry,  burn- 
ing, haunted  the  dark  room.  She  removed  herself 
from  his  arms  and  stood  with  her  hand  in  her  hair. 
She  looked  at  the  dark  sea  that  mirrored  the  night 
outside  the  window.  Turning  to  him  after  a  pause 
she  murmured: 

"I  had  forgotten  Erik  Dorn  was  here." 

A  sudden  stride,  the  gesture  of  another  Rachel, 
and  she  had  thrown  herself  on  the  bed. 

4 '  Oh,  God ! "  she  sobbed.    ' '  I  knew,  I  knew ! ' ' 

Dorn,  kneeling  on  the  floor,  pulled  her  head  to- 
ward him.  He  whispered  her  name.  Why  was  he 
sad,  frightened?  A  thought  was  murmuring  in 
him,  "You  must  love  her." 

"Rachel,  I  love  you.  Please.  Your  tears. 
Dearest,  what  has  happened?  Tell  me. " 


Wings  253 

' '  Don '  t  ask  that . "  Her  tears  came  anew .  ' '  But 
you  come  to  me  sad,  as  if  I  were  no  longer  Rachel 
to  you." 

The  thought  kept  murmuring,  ''You  must  love 
her.  ..." 

" Beautiful  one, "  he  said  softly,  "you're  weeping 
because  something  has  happened  to  you." 

The  thought  murmured,  "because  something 
has  happened  to  you,  not  her." 

"No,  no,  Erik!" 

"Then  why?  If  you  loved  me  you  would  be 
happy." 

Absurd  sentences.    They  would  deceive  no  one. 

A  belated  emotion  overcame  him.  Now  he  was 
happy.  His  arms  grew  strong  about  her.  He 
would  say  nothing,  but  lie  beside  her  kissing  her 
until  the  tears  ended.  This  was  happiness.  He 
watched  her  lips  begin  to  smile  faintly.  Her  face 
touched  him  as  if  she  had  sighed.  She  whispered 
after  a  long  silence,  "Oh,  I  thought  you  had 
changed." 

He  laughed  and  pulled  her  to  her  feet.  His  head 
thrown  back,  his  eyes  amused  and  warm,  he  asked, 
' '  Do  I  seem  changed  now  ? ' ' 

He  waited  while  she  regarded  him.  Why  was  he 
nervous  ?  Must  he  answer  the  question  too  ? 

"No, "  she  said,  "you  are  the  same." 

Her  face  shining  before  him.  Her  head  quickly 
lifted. 

"I  was  a  fool.  Look,  Erik,  I  am  happy— 
happier  than  anybody  on  earth." 


254  Erik  Dorn 

She  dropped  to  her  knees,  kissing  his  hand. 

"I  am  so  happy,  I  kneel.  ..." 

They  stood  together  in  the  window  and  laughed. 

" There's  a  wonderful  old  woman  here.  We've 
talked  a  great  deal,  about  everything,  and  you. 
You  don't  mind?  To-morrow  we'll  lie  all  day  on 
the  shore.  Oh,  Erik.  Erik!" 

"  We'll  never  be  alone  again,  Rachel." 

4 'Never!  "she  echoed. 


CHAPTER  VII 

A  CALM  had  fallen  upon  Erik  Dorn,  an  uncon- 
sciousness of  self.  He  sprawled  through  the 
sunny  days,  staring  at  the  sea  with  Rachel  or  walk- 
ing alone  to  the  fishing-boats  at  the  other  end  of 
the  village,  or  sitting  with  Mama  Turpin,  the  old 
woman  in  whose  cottage  they  lived.  With  Mama 
Turpin  he  held  interminable  talks  that  rambled 
on  through  the  night  at  times.  Religion  was 
Mama  Turpin 's  favored  topic.  Her  round  body 
in  a  rocking-chair,  her  seamed,  vigorous  face  raised 
toward  the  sky,  the  old  woman  would  fall  into  a 
dream  and  talk  quietly  of  her  God.  She  would 
begin,  her  voice  coming  out  of  the  dark  reminding 
Dorn  of  a  girl. 

"Yes,  I  have  always  known  this  here  one  thing. 
Everybody  must  have  a  religion.  Because  there's 
something  in  everybody  that's  way  beyond  their 
selves  to  understand.  And  there's  nobody  to  give 
it  to  excepting  God.  Some  God,  anyways.  .  .  ." 

Rachel,  sitting  in  the  shadows,  would  listen  with 
her  eyes  upon  Erik.  The  fear  that  he  had  brought 
her  was  growing  in  her  heart,  making  her  thought 
heavy  and  her  gestures  slow.  She  would  listen, 
almost  asleep,  to  his  words. 

'  .  .  .  Yes,  Mama  Turpin,  religion  comes  to 
255 


256  Erik  Dorn 

all  people.  But  not  for  long.  We  all  get  a  flame 
in  us  at  some  time  and  it  burns  until  it  burns  itself 
out,  and  then  we  sit  and  forget  to  wonder  about 
things.  ..." 

Talk  perhaps  for  her  to  understand.  But  why 
should  he  hint  when  words  outright  were  easier? 
Rachel  carried  questions  in  her  heart. 

Among  the  fishermen  Dorn  listened  sometimes  to 
stories  of  great  catches  and  storms.  He  was 
usually  silent  watching  them  empty  their  nets  on 
the  shore  and  remove  the  catch  into  basins  and 
pails.  The  men  accepted  his  interest  in  their  work 
with  a  pleased  indifference. 

Rachel  sometimes  walked  with  him  or  stretched 
beside  him  on  the  sand.  But  he  felt  an  uneasiness 
in  her  presence.  Her  eyes  questioned  him  silently 
and  seemed  to  answer  their  own  questions. 

Since  the  evening  of  his  coming  there  had  been 
no  scenes.  He  was  grateful  for  this.  But  the  eyes 
of  Rachel  sometimes  haunted  him  at  night  as  she 
lay  asleep  beside  him.  What  spoke  in  her  eyes? 
He  felt  calm  when  alone,  at  peace  with  himself. 
But  at  night  while  she  slept  he  would  become 
sleepless  and  a  sadness  would  enter  him.  Thoughts 
he  did  not  seem  to  be  thinking  would  move  through 
his  head.  "Things  pass.  Years  pass.  The  sea 
and  the  stars  remain  the  same.  But  men  and 
women  change.  Life  eats  into  men  and  women — 
eats  things  away  from  them.  ..." 

In  his  sadness  there  would  come  to  him  a 
memory  of  Anna.  Thoughts  of  Anna  and  Rachel 


Wings  257 

would  mingle  themselves.  .  .  .  Anna  had  once 
lain  beside  him  like  this.  He  remembered  now. 
Her  body  was  different  from  Rachel's — softer, 
warmer  ...  a  woman  named  Anna  had  lived 
with  him.  Now  a  woman  named  Rachel.  And 
to-morrow,  what?  There  were  yesterdays.  These 
were  not  sad.  Things  already  dead  were  not  sa 
sad.  But  things  that  are  to  die.  .  .  . 

His  heart  would  grow  weak,  seeming  to  dissolve. 
Something  unspoken  in  the  night.  Tears  in  his 
heart.  Calm  in  his  thought.  He  would  figure  it 
out  sometime.  His  words  were  alert  little  busy- 
bodies.  They  could  follow  things  into  difficult 
crevices.  But  was  there  anything  to  figure  out? 
He  was  growing  old  and  a  to-morrow  was  haunting 
him.  Some  day  he  would  close  his  eyes  slowly  and 
in  the  slow  closing  of  his  eyes  the  world  would  end. 
Erik  Dorn  would  have  ended.  Was  there  such  a. 
thing  as  ending?  Yes,  things  were  always  ending. 
Now  he  was  different  than  the  night  he  had  lain 
beside  Rachel  and  whispered,  "You  have  given 
me  wings."  But  how?  He  felt  the  same.  Change 
came  like  that.  Leaving  one  the  same.  He  would 
write  things  from  Europe  that  would  startle.  He 
could  write.  .  .  .  But,  something  unspoken  in 
the  night.  He  must  say  it  to  himself .  .  .  .  "You 
must  love  her.  ..."  Then  that  was  it.  He  no 
longer  loved  her. 

He  lay  listening  to  her  breathing.    An  end  to 
his  love.    Preposterous  notion!      How,  since  the 
thought  of  parting  from  her  wrenched  at  his  heart? 
17 


258  Erik  Dorn 

"If  I  went  away  from  Rachel  I  would  die."  Un- 
questionably sincere.  ...  "I'd  die."  Not,  of 
course,  die.  But  feel  death.  Yet,  there  was  some- 
thing changed.  But  a  man  doesn't  remain  an 
ecstatic  lover.  There  comes  a  time.  Well,  he 
loved  her  like  this — quietly,  happily,  and  if  he  went 
away  from  her  he  would  feel  an  end  had  come  to 
his  life.  The  other  love  had  been  words  flying  in 
his  head.  Nice  to  have  felt  as  he  had.  But  life — 
practical,  material  rush  of  hours.  Words  had 
flown  in  his  head  once.  He  smiled.  "Wings, 
what  are  they?"  He  remembered  having  spoken 
and  thought  a  great  deal  about  wings.  Now  the 
idea  seemed  somewhat  absurd.  They  were  not  a 
part  of  life.  Inventions.  An  invention.  A  phrase 
to  explain  an  unusual  state  of  physical  and  mental 
excitement.  .  .  .  Sleep  intruded  and  the  sadness 
melted  out  of  him.  As  he  closed  his  eyes  his  hand 
reached  dreamily  for  Rachel  and  lay  upon  her 
shoulder. 

A  week  of  silence  followed.  Dorn  talked.  Poli- 
tics, economics,  the  coming  peace  treaty.  Rachel 
listened  and  made  replies.  Yet  their  words  seemed 
only  the  part  of  a  silence  between  them.  A  letter 
from  Washington  interrupted  them.  A  passport 
was  being  issued  for  Erik  Dorn,  but  the  bureau 
was  not  issuing  passports  for  women  and  would 
have  to  deny  Mrs.  Rachel  Dorn  .  .  .  "enclosed 
please  find  $i  deposit  made  for  Mrs.  Dorn  at  this 
office." 

"Well,  that  ends  it,"  he  laughed.    "Perhaps  I 


Wings  259 

shouldn't  have  lied  about  your  being  Mrs.  Dorn. 
God  is  a  jealous  God  and  punishes  liars." 

"  You  must  go  on, "  Rachel  said.  "  Perhaps  I'll 
get  one  later." 

"No,  we'll  both  wait.  I  couldn't  go  without 
you." 

Rachel  regarded  him  tenderly.  They  were 
sitting  on  Mama  Turpin's  porch. 

"Yes,  you  will, "  she  said. 

He  shook  his  head,  pleased  at  the  opportunity 
for  sacrifice.  He  hoped  as  he  smiled  that  Rachel 
would  plead  with  him  to  go  alone.  In  her  pleading 
she  would  point  out  all  the  things  he  was  giving  up 
by  not  going.  She  might  even  say,  "You  must  go, 
Erik .  You  can '  t  sacrifice  your  career. ' ' 

Then  he  could  shrug  his  shoulders,  remain  silent 
for  a  moment  as  if  weighing  his  career  beside  his 
love  for  her,  and  smile  suddenly  and  say,  gently, 
"No.  It's  ended.  Please,  it's  ended  and  for- 
gotten." A  laugh,  a  bit  too  casual,  would  leave 
the  thing  on  the  proper  plane.  Later  there  would 
be  times  when  he  could  grow  thoughtful  and  ab- 
stract and  Rachel,  looking  at  him,  would  know 
that  he  had  sacrificed — his  career. 

On  Mama  Turpin's  porch  Dorn's  thoughts 
rambled  in  silence.  Rachel  had  said  nothing.  He 
looked  at  her  and  grew  confused  before  the  straight- 
ness  of  her  eyes,  as  if  she  knew  the  tawdry  little 
plot  moving  through  his  mind.  Then  an  irritation 
.  .  .  why  didn't  she  plead?  Did  she  think  it  was 
nothing  to  give  up  his  plans?  Was  it  anything? 


260  Erik  Dorn 

No.  He  endeavored  to  evade  his  own  questioning, 
but  his  thoughts  mocked  him  with  answers.  .  .  . 
"I'm  playing  a  game  with  her.  I  want  her  to  feel 
sorry  and  grateful  for  my  not  going  and  to  feel 
that  I've  made  a  sacrifice  for  her.  Because  I  could 
cherish  it  against  her  .  .  .  later.  Have  something 
I  could  pretend  to  be  sad  about.  It  would  give  me 
an  excuse  to  scold  her.  .  .  .  Merely  by  looking 
at  her  I  could  remind  her  that  she  is  indebted  to 
me  for  a  sacrifice.  Make-believe  sacrifice  gives  one 
the  unconsciousness  of  virtue  without  any  of  its 
discomforts.  I'm  irritated  because  she  refuses  to 
play  her  part  in  the  farce  and  so  makes  me  seem 
cheap.  She  knows  I'm  lying  but  she  can't  figure 
out  how  or  what  about.  So  she  looks  at  me  and 
says  to  herself,  '  Erik  has  changed.  He's  different. ' 
She  means  that  I've  become  an  actor  and  able  to 
offer  her  cheap  things.  But  she  doesn't  know  that 
in  words." 

As  he  sat  thinking,  an  understanding  of  himself 
played  beneath  his  thoughts.  He  was  irritated 
with  her.  The  passport  business  was  something 
he  could  hang  his  irritation  on.  It  offered  an 
opportunity  to  make  the  petulant,  indefinable 
aversion  he  sometimes  felt  toward  her  into  a  noble, 
self -laudatory  emotion. 

He  stood  up  abruptly.  Make  amends  by  being 
truthful  and  putting  an  end  to  the  theatrics.  .  .  . 
"Listen,  Rachel,  it's  foolish  for  us  to  take  this 
seriously.  I  don't  give  a  damn  about  going,  and 
I  never  did.  It  would  bore  me.  It  means  nothing 


Wings  261 

to  me,  and  it's  no  sacrifice  or  even  inconvenience. 
Please,  I  mean  it.  Put  it  out  of  your  head/' 

He  leaned  over  and  took  her  hands. 

"I  love  you.  .  .  ." 

Despite  himself  there  was  a  note  of  sacrifice. 
He  frowned.  His  "I  love  you"  had  startled  him. 
He  had  said  it  as  one  pats  a  woman  reassuringly 
on  the  shoulder.  More,  as  one  turns  the  other 
cheek  in  a  forgiving  Christian  spirit.  He  was  not 
an  actor.  He  had  become  naturally  cheap. 

Rachel  smiled  wanly  at  him  and  kissed  his 
hands.  He  noticed  that  she  looked  thin  about  the 
face  and  that  her  eyes  seemed  ill  with  too  much 
weeping.  He  wondered  when  it  was  she  wept. 
When  she  was  alone,  of  course.  For  a  moment  the 
thought  of  her  flung  across  the  bed  and  weeping 
stirred  him  sensually.  Then  .  .  .  what  made  her 
cry  so  much?  Good  God,  what  did  she  want  of 
him?  He  was  giving  up.  .  .  .  Again  he  frowned. 
1 '  F ve  become  a  cad, "  he  thought.  ' '  I  can't  think 
honestly  any  more.  Thoughts  act  themselves  in 
my  head.  I've  gotten  to  thinking  lies  and  thinking 
them  naturally  without  trying  to  lie.  .  .  . " 

"I'm  going  for  a  walk, "  he  announced,  and  went 
off  toward  the  shore  where  the  fishing-boats  were 
drifting  in  becalmed. 

Mama  Turpin  came  out  on  the  porch.  Rachel 
smiled  at  the  old  woman. 

"It's  peaceful  here,  Mama  Turpin." 

"Yes,  honey.  My  work's  all  done  for  the  day 
now." 


262  Erik  Dorn 

"Nothing  ever  changes  here,"  Rachel  mur- 
mured. ' '  The  sea  is  just  the  same  as  when  I  came. 
I  think  I'll  be  leaving  soon,  Mama  Turpin.  Mr. 
Dorn  will  stay  on  for  a  little  while.  I  have  some 
work  I  must  get  back  to." 

She  paused  and  shaded  her  eyes  from  the  setting 
sun. 

"It's  been  wonderful  down  here.  Ill  never 
forget  it.  Perhaps  some  day  I'll  come  back  to 
visit  again." 

She  arose  and  sighed. 

"What's  the  matter,  honey?"  the  old  woman 
asked,  watching  her. 

Rachel  waited  till  her  lips  could  smile  again. 
Then  she  said : 

' '  Oh,  I  hate  to  leave  it  here.  But  I  have  so  much 
work  to  do. " 

She  entered  the  house  swiftly.  In  her  room  she 
lay  on  the  bed,  her  face  in  the  pillow  as  if  she  were 
waiting  for  tears.  But  none  came.  She  lay  in 
silence  until  it  grew  dark  and  she  heard  Erik  out- 
side asking  Mama  Turpin  where  she  was. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

IT  was  dawn  when  they  awoke.  Rachel  opened 
her  eyes  first.  A  lassitude  filled  her.  She 
remained  quiet  for  moments  and  then  sat  up  and 
stared  at  Erik.  His  face  was  flushed  and  he  was 
sleeping  lightly,  his  eyes  almost  open. 

"Erik, "  she  whispered.  When  he  looked  at  her 
she  leaned  over  and  kissed  him. 

"Last  night  was  wonderful,"  she  murmured. 

He  smiled  sleepily. 

"I  want  to  lie  in  your  arms  for  just  a  minute. 
And  then  we'll  get  up,  Erik." 

Her  head  sank  against  his  shoulder  and  she 
remained  with  her  eyes  closed.  He  murmured 
her  name.  Over  Rachel's  face  a  curious  light 
spread  itself.  She  sat  up  and  turned  her  eyes  to 
him. 

"My  dear  one,  my  lover!" 

Dorn  regarded  her  with  a  sudden  confusion. 
Her  eyes  and  voice  were  confusing.  Women  were 
strange.  Her  eyes  were  large,  burning,  devour- 
ing ...  "I  will  be  a  shrine  to  you  always.  Let 
me  look  at  you.  I  have  never  looked  at  you.  .  .  ." 
Why  was  he  remembering  that?  He  felt  himself 
grow  frightened.  Her  eyes  were  saying  something 
that  must  not  be  said.  His  arms  reached  out. 

263 


264  Erik  Dorn 

Crush  her  to  him.  Hold  her  tightly.  Sing  his 
love  to  her.  .  .  . 

She  had  slipped  from  the  bed  and  was  standing 
on  the  floor,  shaking  her  head  at  him.  Her  face 
seemed  blank.  Dorn  sat  up  and  blinked  ludi- 
crously. She  had  jumped  out  of  his  arms.  He 
laughed.  Coquetting.  But  her  eyes  had  been 
strange.  .  .  . 

"  Listen,  Erik,  do  you  mind  if  I  spend  the  morn- 
ing alone?  I  have  some  letters  to  write  and  things. 
Then  I'll  meet  you  on  the  beach  and  we'll  go 
swimming  and  lie  on  the  sand  together.  Will 
you?" 

He  nodded  cheerfully  and  swung  himself  out  of 
bed.  His  calm  had  returned.  The  memories  of 
the  curiously  abandoned,  shameless  Rachel  of  the 
night  lingered  for  a  moment  questioningly  and 
then  left  him. 

They  ate  breakfast  together  and  Dorn  strode 
off  alone.  He  felt  surprised  at  himself.  He  had 
forgotten  all  about  his  trip  to  Europe. 

"The  sun  and  the  rest  here  are  doing  me  good," 
he  thought.  "I'm  getting  normal.  But  a  little 
stupidity  won't  hurt." 

The  morning  slipped  away  and  he  returned  to 
the  beach  from  a  walk  through  the  village.  It  was 
early  afternoon  and  the  sands  were  deserted.  The 
sea  lay  like  a  great  Easter  egg  under  the  hot  sun, 
a  vast  and  inanimate  daub  of  glittering  blue,  green, 
and  gold.  He  seated  himself  on  the  burning  sand 
and  stared  at  it.  Years  could  pass  this  way  and 


Wings  265 

he  could  sit  dreaming  lifeless  words,  the  sea  like  a 
painted  beetle's  back,  the  sea  like  a  shell  of  water 
resting  on  a  stenciled  horizon.  A  wind  was  dying 
among  the  clouds.  It  had  blown  them  into  large 
shapeless  virgins.  Puffy  white  solitudes  over  his 
head.  He  looked  down  and  saw  Rachel  coming 
toward  him.  She  was  carrying  a  woolen  blanket 
over  her  arms. 

She  approached  and  appeared  excited.  Her  face 
flushed. 

"Shall  we  go  in?" 

He  nodded.  Her  voice  disturbed  him.  He 
would  have  preferred  her  calm,  gentle.  Particu- 
larly after  last  night.  She  unloosened  her  clothes 
quickly  and  hurried  nude  toward  the  water.  Dorn, 
after  an  uneasy  survey  of  the  empty  beach, 
watched  her.  In  the  glare  of  the  sun  and  sand  her 
body  seemed  insistently  unfamiliar.  He  would 
have  preferred  her  familiar.  He  joined  her  and 
they  pushed  into  the  water  together.  Her  excited 
manner  depressed  him. 

"Let's  swim,"  he  called. 

A  blue,  singing  moment  under  the  water  and 
they  were  up,  swimming  slowly  into  the  unbroken 
sheet  of  the  sea.  Rachel  came  nearer  to  him,  the 
water  sparkling  from  her  moving  arms. 

"Do  you  like  it,  Erik?" 

He  laughed  in  answer.  Her  head  was  turned 
toward  him  and  he  could  see  her  dark  eyes  smiling 
against  the  water. 

"Wouldn't  it  be  nice, "  she  said  softly,  "to  swim 


266  Erik  Dorn 

out  together  like  lovers  in  a  poem?    Out  and  out! 
And  never  come  back!" 

Her  voice,  slipping  across  the  water,  became  un- 
familiar.   They  continued  moving. 

"Yes,"  he  answered  at  length,  smiling  back  at 
her.  "It  would  be  easy.  And  I'm  willing." 

They  swam  in  silence.  He  began  to  wonder. 
Were  they  going  out  and  out  and  never  coming 
back?  Perhaps  they  were  doing  that.  One  might 
become  involved  in  a  suicide  like  that.  He  closed 
his  eyes  and  his  head  moved  through  the  coldness 
of  the  water.  What  matter?  What  was  there  to 
come  back  to?  All  hours  were  the  same.  He 
might  wait  until  a  thousand  more  had  dragged 
themselves  to  an  ending.  Or  swim  out  and  out. 
When  he  grew  tired  he  would  kiss  her  and  say, 
"It  is  easier  to  make  our  own  endings  than  to 
wait  for  them."  The  sun  would  be  shining  and  her 
eyes  would  sing  to  him  for  an  instant  over  the 
water. 

"We'd  better  turn  now,  Erik." 

"  No, "  he  smiled.    "  We're  lovers  in  a  poem." 

She  came  nearer. 

"Come,  we  must  go  back,  Erik." 

"No." 

He  answered  firmly.  It  pleased  him  to  say 
"no."  He  felt  a  superiority.  He  could  say  "no" 
and  then  she  would  plead  with  him  and  perhaps 
finally  persuade  him. 

"Not  now,  Erik.  Some  other  time,  may- 
be. 


Wings  267 

"But  it  would  be  a  proper  ending,*'  he  argued. 
"What  else  is  there?  You  are  unhappy.  And 
perhaps  I  am  too.  Come,  it  will  be  easy." 

For  a  moment  a  fright  came  into  him.  She  was 
not  pleading.  She  was  silent  and  looking  at  him 
as  they  drifted.  What  if  she  should  remain  silent  ? 
"I  don't  want  to  die,"  he  thought,  "but  does  it 
matter?"  He  wondered  at  himself.  He  had 
spoken  of  dying.  Sincerely?  No.  But  if  she  re- 
mained silent  they  would  keep  swimming  until 
there  was  nothing  left  to  do  but  die.  Then  he  was 
sincere?  No.  He  would  drown  as  a  sort  of  casual 
argument.  Good  God!  Her  silence  was  asking 
his  life.  What  matter?  He  cared  neither  to  live 
nor  to  die.  He  looked  at  her  with  an  amused  smile 
in  his  eyes.  His  heart  had  begun  to  beat  violently. 

A  sudden  relief.  She  had  turned  and  was  swim- 
ming toward  the  shore.  He  hesitated.  Absurd 
to  turn  back  too  hurriedly.  He  waited  till  she 
looked  behind  her  to  see  if  he  were  coming.  Her 
looking  back  was  a  vindication.  She  had  believed 
then  that  he  might  go  on,  out  and  out.  .  .  .  He 
could  follow  her  to  the  shore  now.  .  .  . 

The  swim  had  exhausted  them.  Rachel  threw 
herself  on  the  sand,  Dorn  covering  her  with  the 
blanket.  They  lay  together,  the  whiteness  and 
the  blaze  of  the  sky  tearing  at  their  eyes.  Her  hair 
had  spread  itself  like  a  black  fan  under  her  head. 

The  oven  heat  of  the  day  dried  the  burn  of  the 
sun  into  a  chalked  and  hammering  glare — an  un- 
remitting roar  of  light  that  seemed  to  beat  the 


268  Erik  Dorn 

world  into  a  metallic  sleep.  The  sea  had  stiffened 
itself  into  a  dead  flame.  Molten,  staring  sweeps 
of  color  burst  upon  their  eyes  with  a  massive  inti- 
macy. The  etched  horizon,  the  stagnant  gleaming 
arch  of  the  water,  and  the  acetylene  burn  of  the 
sand  gave  the  scene  the  appearance  of  a  monstrous 
lithograph. 

The  figures  of  the  lovers  lay  without  life.  Rachel 
had  turned  her  head  from  the  glare.  Through 
veiling  fingers  Dorn  remained  staring  at  the  veneer 
of  isolation  about  them.  Waves  of  heat  crept  like 
ghost  fires  across  the  nakedness  of  the  scene.  He 
thought  of  the  sun  as  a  pilgrim  walking  over  the 
barren  floor  of  an  empty  cathedral.  Over  him  the 
motionless  smoke-bellied  clouds  hung  gleaming  in 
the  dead  fanfare  of  the  sky.  He  thought  of  them  as 
swollen  white  blooms  stamped  upon  a  board.  As 
the  moments  slipped,  he  became  conscious  that 
Rachel  was  talking.  Her  voice  made  a  tiny  noise 
in  the  grave  torpitude  of  the  day. 

"It's  like  listening  to  singing,  Erik.  What  are 
you  thinking  of?" 

"Nothing.  I  like  the  way  the  heat  tightens  my 
skin  and  pinches." 

"Do  you  remember,"  she  asked  softly,  "once 
you  said  beauty  is  an  external  emotion?" 

He  answered  drowsily,  "Did  I?  I'm  tired, 
dearest.  Let's  nap  awhile." 

1 '  No.    I  want  to  hear  you  talk  just  a  little. " 

He  pressed  his  face  into  his  arm,  drawing  his 
clothes  carelessly  over  him  for  protection. 


Wings  269 

"I  can't  think  of  anything  to  say,  Rachel,  ex- 
cept that  I'm  content.  The  sun  brings  a  luxurious 
pain  into  one's  blood.  ..." 

"Yes,  a  luxurious  pain,"  she  repeated  quietly. 
"Please  let's  talk." 

"Too  damn  hot." 

' '  I  always  expect  you  to  say  things.  As  if  you 
knew  things  I  didn't,  Erik.  I've  always  thought 
of  you  as  knowing  everything." 

"Ordinarily  I  do, "  he  mumbled. 

"Wonderful  Erik.  ..." 

Flattery  was  annoying.  There  were  times  for 
being  wonderful  and  times  for  grunting  at  the  sand. 

"My  vocabulary,"  he  mumbled  again,  "has 
curled  up  its  toes  and  gone  to  sleep." 

His  eyes  grew  heavy. 

Drowsily,  "I'm  an  old  man  and  need  my  sleep." 

He  felt  Rachel's  hand  reaching  gently  for  his 
head. 

A  cool  gloom  squatted  on  the  sand  about  him 
when  he  opened  his  eyes.  The  scene  was  a  stranger. 
The  sea  and  sand,  dark  strangers.  His  body  felt 
stiffened  and  his  skin  hurt.  He  sat  up  and  stared 
about  with  parched  eyes. 

The  sun  had  gone  down.  A  hollow  light  lingered 
in  the  sky,  an  echo  of  light.  He  turned  toward  the 
blanket  beside  him.  Rachel  was  gone.  She  had 
left  the  blanket  in  a  little  heap,  unfolded.  Why 
hadn't  she  wakened  him?  She  must  be  on  the 
beach  somewhere,  waiting. 

In  the  distance  he  saw  the  shapeless  figures  of 


270  Erik  Dorn 

the  fishermen  moving  from  their  grounded  boats. 
Staring  about  at  the  deserted  scene  he  felt  un- 
accountably sad.  It  would  have  been  pleasant  to 
have  wakened  and  found  Rachel  sitting  beside  him. 

A  sheet  of  paper  was  pinned  on  the  blanket.  He 
noticed  it  as  he  slipped  painfully  into  his  shirt. 
He  continued  to  dress  himself,  his  eyes  regarding 
the  bit  of  paper.  His  heart  had  grown  heavy  at  the 
sight  of  it. 

When  he  was  dressed  he  folded  the  blanket 
carefully  and  removed  the  note.  A  pallor  in  his 
thought.  Something  had  happened.  He  had 
fallen  asleep  under  a  glaring  sun.  Rachel  stretched 
beside  him.  Now  the  glare  of  the  sun  was  gone  and 
the  sea  and  the  sand  were  vaguely  unreal,  dark,  and 
unfriendly.  The  little  blanket  was  empty. 

He  sat  wondering  why  he  didn't  read  the  note. 
But  he  was  reading  it.  He  knew  what  it  said.  It 
said  Rachel  had  gone  and  would  never  come  back. 
A  very  tragic  business.  .  .  .  "You  do  not  love  me 
any  more  as  you  did.  You  have  changed.  And  if 
I  stayed  it  would  mean  that  in  a  little  while  longer 
you  would  forget  all  about  me.  Now  perhaps  you 
will  remember.'* 

Quite  true.  He  had  taught  her  such  paradoxes. 
He  would  remember.  That  was  logical  .  .  .  "to 
remember  how  you  loved  me  makes  it  impossible 
to  remain  with  you.  Oh,  I  die  when  I  look  at  you 
and  see  nothing  in  your  eyes.  It  is  too  much  pain. 
I  am  going  away.  .  .  .  Dearest,  I  have  known 
for  a  long  time." 


Wings  271 

His  eyes  skipped  part  of  the  words.  Unimpor- 
tant words.  Why  read  any  further?  The  thing 
was  over,  ended.  Rachel  gone.  More  words  on 
the  other  side  of  the  paper.  His  eyes  skimmed  .  .  . 
"you  have  been  God  to  me.  I  am  not  afraid.  Oh, 
I  am  strong.  Good-bye. " 

Still  more  words.  A  postscript.  Women  always 
wrote  postscripts — the  gesture  of  femininity  im- 
mortalized by  Lot's  wife.  Never  mind  the  post- 
script. Tear  the  paper  into  bits.  It  offended  his 
fingers.  Walk  over  to  the  water's  edge  and  scatter 
it  on  the  sea. 

He  had  lain  too  long  in  the  sun.  Probably  burn 
like  hell  to-night.  "Here  goes  Rachel  into  the 
sea."  Soft  music  and  a  falling  curtain. 

He  read  from  one  of  the  scraps.  .  .  .  "Erik, 
you  will  be  grateful  later.  ..."  Let  the  sea  take 
that.  And  the  "good-bye,  my  dear  one.  .  .  ." 
A  patch  of  white  on  the  darkened  water,  too  tiny 
to  follow.  Would  she  be  waiting  when  he  came 
back  to  the  room?  No,  the  room  would  be  empty. 
A  comb  and  brush  and  tray  of  hairpins  would  be 
missing  from  the  dressing-table. 

A  smile  played  over  Dorn's  face.  His  move- 
ments had  grown  abstract  as  if  he  were  intensely 
preoccupied  with  his  thoughts.  Yet  there  were  no 
thoughts.  He  walked  for  moments  lazily  along 
the  water's  edge  kicking  at  the  sand,  his  eyes  follow- 
ing the  last  of  the  paper  bits  still  afloat.  They 
vanished  and  he  sighed  with  relief.  ...  "It's 
all  a  make-believe.  The  sea,  Rachel,  the  war. 


272  Erik  Dorn 

Things  don't  mean  anything.  Last  night  there 
was  someone  to  kiss.  To-night,  no  one.  But 
where's  the  difference.  Nothing  .  .  .  nothing.  .  .  . 
Will  I  cave  in  or  keep  on  smiling?  Probably  cave 
in.  One  must  be  polite  to  one's  emotions.  The 
sea  says  she's  gone,"  his  thought  rambled,  "dark 
empty  waters  say  she's  gone.  Rachel's  gone. 
Well,  what  of  it?  Like  losing  a  hat.  Does  any- 
thing matter  much?  An  ending.  Leave  the 
theater.  Draw  a  new  breath.  Remember  vaguely 
what  the  actors  said  or  what  they  should  have 
said.  All  the  same.  What  was  in  the  postscript  ? 
Not  fair  to  throw  it  away  without  reading  it. 
Should  have  read  carefully.  Took  her  hours  to 
pick  the  right  words.  Night  .  .  .  night.  It'll 
be  night  soon." 

His  words  left  him  and  he  walked  faster.  He 
began  to  run.  She  would  be  waiting  in  their  room. 
On  the  bed  .  .  .  crying  .  .  .  "I  couldn't  leave 
you,  Erik.  Oh,  I  couldn't."  And  later  they  would 
laugh  about  it. 

Mama  Turpin  was  on  the  porch.  He  slowed  his 
run.  To  rush  breathless  past  the  old  woman  would 
make  a  bad  impression,  if  nothing  had  happened. 

"Good  evening,  Mr.  Dorn." 

Of  course  she  was  upstairs.  Or  would  Mama 
Turpin  say  good-evening? 

"Hello,"  he  called  back  casually,  and  walked 
on,  his  legs  jumping  ahead  of  him. 

The  room  was  empty.  More  than  empty,  for 
the  comb  and  brush  and  tray  of  hairpins  were 


Wings  273 

missing.  His  eyes  had  swept  the  dressing-table 
as  he  came  in.  They  were  gone. 

There  would  be  another  note.  Why  didn't  she 
leave  it  some  place  where  he  could  find  it  at  a 
glance,  instead  of  making  him  hunt  around?  Hunt 
around.  Under  the  bed.  On  the  chairs.  No  note. 
Good  God,  she  was  insane!  Going  away — why 
should  she  go  away?  .  .  .  "we'll  have  a  long  talk 
about  it  and  straighten  it  out,  of  course,  but  .  .  . " 
The  insanity  of  the  thing  remained.  Gone ! 

He  stopped  and  felt  his  head  aching.  The  sun 
.  .  .  "you  won't  find  me  if  you  look  for  me. 
Please  don't  try.  One  good-bye  is  easier  and  better 
than  two.  Erik,  Erik,  something  has  died  for 
always.  ..." 

Then  he  had  read  it.  That  had  been  in  the  post- 
script. He  had  given  it  a  glance,  not  intending  to 
follow  the  words.  Unimportant  words. 

"Died  for  always,"  he  mumbled  suddenly. 

.  .  .  His  head  pressed  against  the  pillow  in  the 
dark  room,  he  began  to  weep.  The  odor  of  her  hair 
was  still  in  the  pillow.  Yes,  the  dream  had  died. 
And  she  had  run  from  its  corpse,  leaving  behind 
the  faint  odor  of  her  hair  on  a  pillow.  How,  died! 
Better  to  have  her  gone.  .  .  .  Tears  burned  in 
his  eyes.  He  repeated  aloud,  "better.  ..." 

An  agony  was  twisting  itself  about  his  heart. 
His  face  moved  as  if  he  were  in  pain.  With  his 
fists  he  began  to  beat  the  bed.  It  had  gone  away. 
It  had  come  and  smiled  at  him  for  a  moment, 
lifted  him  for  a  moment,  and  then  gone  away  as  if 

18 


274  Erik  Dorn 

it  had  never  been.  But  it  would  come  back.  He 
would  weep  and  pound  on  the  bed  with  his  fists 
and  bring  it  back.  The  face  of  stars,  eyes  burning, 
devouring,  eyes  kindling  his  soul  into  ecstasies. 

"Rachel!"  he  cried  aloud. 

Silence.  His  tears  had  ended.  He  lay  motion- 
less on  the  bed,  his  body  suddenly  weak,  his 
thought  tired.  Someone  had  shouted  a  name  in 
his  ears.  A  dead  man  had  shouted  the  name  of 
Rachel.  It  was  the  cry  of  an  Erik  Dorn  who  was 
dead.  He'd  heard  it  in  the  dark  room.  An  old, 
already  forgotten  Erik  Dorn  who  had  laughed  in  a 
halloo  of  storms,  heels  up,  head  down.  Madness 
and  a  dream.  Wings  and  a  face  of  stars.  They  had 
vanished  with  an  old  and  almost  forgotten  Erik 
Dorn  who  had  called  their  name  out  of  a  grave. 
So  things  whirled  away. 

He  arose  and  stood  looking  out  of  the  window. 
Night  had  come  .  .  .  "dark  rendezvous  of  sor- 
rows. Silent  Madonna  of  the  spaces.  ..."  He 
whispered  to  see  if  there  were  still  phrases  in  him. 
His  lips  smiled  against  the  window.  Phrases  .  .  . 
words  .  .  .  and  the  rest  was  a  make-believe  once 
more.  A  pattern  precise  and  meaningless.  His 
little  flight  over.  Now  it  was  time  to  walk  again. 

Anna  had  stood  one  night  staring  at  him.  He 
remembered.  Oh,  yes,  he'd  run  away  quickly  for 
fear  he  might  hear  her  shriek.  And  then,  Rachel. 
But  these  things  were  passed.  It  was  time  to  walk. 
Did  he  still  love  her?  Yes.  It  would  have  been 
easier  to  walk  with  her — calmly,  placidly,  their 


Wings  275 

hands  sometimes  touching.  Forgetting  other 
days  and  other  kisses  together.  But  he  would  not 
lie  to  himself.  An  end  to  that  now.  Love  made  a 
liar  of  a  man.  At  the  beginning  and  at  the  end — 
lies.  The  ache  now  was  one  of  memory,  not  of 
loss.  The  pain  was  one  of  death.  Dead  things 
hurt  inside  him.  Afterward  his  heart  would  carry 
them  about  unknowingly.  The  dead  things  would 
end  their  hurt.  But  now,  leaden  heavy,  they  kept 
slipping  deeper  into  him  as  if  seeking  graves  that 
did  not  yet  exist. 

Standing  before  the  window,  Dorn's  smile  grew 
cold. 

"A  make-believe,"  he  whispered,  "but  not 
quite  the  same  as  it  was  before.  A  loneliness  and 
an  emptiness.  Ruins  in  which  once  there  was 
feasting.  And  now,  nothing  .  .  .  nothing.  ..." 


PART  IV 

ADVENTURE 


277 


CHAPTER  I 

I  ONG  days.  Short  days.  Outside  the  window 
*— *  was  an  ant-hill  street.  And  an  ant-hill  of 
days.  In  the  stores  they  were  already  selling 
calendars  for  the  next  year.  Outside  the  window 
was  a  flat  roof.  By  looking  at  the  flat  roof  you 
remembered  that  Mary  James  was  married.  Un- 
expectedly. You  came  out  of  the  ant-hill  street, 
climbed  the  stairs,  and  sat  down  and  looked  at  the 
flat  roof.  Long  days,  short  days  turned  themselves 
over  on  the  flat  roof,  and  turned  themselves  over 
in  your  heart. 

Occasionally  an  event.  Events  were  things  that 
differed  from  putting  on  your  shoes  or  buying 
butter  in  the  grocery  store.  There  was  an  event 
now.  It  challenged  the  importance  of  the  flat  roof. 
Hazlitt  was  sitting  in  the  room  and  talking. 
Rachel  listened. 

An  eloquent  event.  But  words  jumbled  into 
sound.  Loud  sounds.  Soft  sounds.  They  made 
her  sleepy,  as  rain  pattering  on  a  window  made 
her  sleepy,  or  snow  sinking  out  of  the  sky.  There 
were  sleepy  words  in  her  mind  that  had  nothing  to 
do  with  the  event.  Then  the  event  came  and 
mingled  itself,  mixed  itself  into  the  words  .  .  . 
"no  sorrow.  No  remorse.  The  dead  are  dead. 

279 


28o  Erik  Dorn 

Oh,  most  extremely  dead!  So  I'll  sit  by  my  sad 
little  window  and  listen  to  this  unbearable  creature 
make  love.  The  idiot'll  go  'way  in  an  hour  and 
I'll  be  able  to  draw.  Funny,  my  thoughts  keep 
moving  on,  despite  everything.  Like  John  Brown's 
soul,  or  something.  Words  get  to  be  separate,  like 
the  snickers  of  dead  people.  You  think  as  one 
adds  figures.  Thoughts  add,  and  draw  pictures 
the  same  way.  A  line  here.  A  line  there.  And 
you  have  a  face.  Curve  a  line  up  and  the  face 
laughs.  Curve  it  down  and  the  face  weeps.  You 
lie  dead.  Always  dead.  You  lie  dead  in  the 
street.  The  day  tears  your  heart  out.  The  night 
tears  your  eyes  out.  And  when  somebody  passes, 
even  a  banana  peddler,  your  eyes  jump  back,  your 
heart  jumps  back,  and  you  look  up  and  snicker  and 
say,  'It's  all  right.  I'm  just  lying  here  for  fun. 
I'm  dead  for  fun.  ...  He  still  loves  me.  I  must 
answer  him."' 

She  spoke  aloud : 

"No,  George,  I  hear  you.  But  I  don't  love  you. 
I  can't  say  it  more  plainly,  can  I  ? " 

Her  thoughts  resumed.  "Dear  me.  He  talks 
almost  as  well  as  Erik.  Lord,  he  thinks  I'm  a 
virgin.  His  pure  and  unfaltering  star.  Well, 
well!  Why  am  I  amused?  Is  life  amusing,  after 
all?  Am  I  really  happy?  Alas !  my  heart  is  broken. 
I  must  not  forget  my  heart  is  broken.  You  forget 
sometimes  and  begin  snickering  and  somebody 
rings  the  bell  and  hands  you  a  telegram  reading, 
'Your  heart  is  broken.'  Rachel  of  the  broken 


Adventure  281 

heart !  It  was  all  very  beautiful.  This  talk  of  his 
somehow  brings  it  back  .  .  .  Oh,  God.  That  was 
a  line  curved  down.  What  eloquence!  There, 
now,  I  must  speak.  I'll  have  to  tell  him  again." 

Aloud  she  went  on,  "You're  mistaken  in  me, 
George.'1 

A  flurry  of  silent  words  halted  her.  ...  "Ye 
gods,  what  a  speech ;  she  is  not  all  his  fancy  painted 
him.  Indeed!  Not  mistaken.  His  heart  tells  him. 
Poor  boy !  Poor  little  clowns  who  pay  attention  to 
what  their  hearts  say!  I  mustn't  be  rude." 

She  interrupted  him,  "If  you'll  listen  to  me, 
George  ..." 

Then,  "What '11  I  say?  If  only  he  inspired 
something  by  his  eloquence — a  phrase,  at  least. 
But  my  heart  snickers  at  him.  Ah!  the  dead  are 
wonderfully  dead.  I'll  tell  him  I'm  not  a  virgin. 
That'll  be  surprising  news.  But  how?  Like  a 
medical  report  ?  The  woman  was  found  not  to  be 
a  virgin.  The  thing  seems  to  hinge  on  that.  Why 
in  God's  name  does  he  keep  virgining?" 

"No,  George, "  she  answered  aloud,  "I'm  sorry. 
I  don't  believe  in  love.  ..."  Listen  to  her !  ' '  You 
see,  I've  been  in  love  myself.  Indeed  I  have. 
That's  why  you  find  me  changed." 

He  protested  and  her  words  followed  silently. 
"My  laughing  makes  him  angry.  But  I  must 
laugh.  Love  is  something  to  laugh  over,  isn't  it? 
Oh,  God,  why  doesn't  he  go  'way  ? "  The  fiat  roof 
vanished.  There  was  a  rising  event  in  the  room 
and  the  flat  roof  bowed  good-bye  and  walked  away. 


282  Erik  Dorn 

"Yes,  I  was  in  love  for  quite  a  while  with  a 
man, "  she  answered  him.  "And  I'm  in  love  with 
him  yet — in  a  way.  But  we've  parted.  He  had  to 
go  to  Europe."  Nevertheless  he  still  thought  she 
was  a  virgin.  He'd  started  another  virgining 
speech.  There  would  have  to  be  a  medical  report. 
"We  lived  together  for  over  a  year.  We  weren't 
married,  of  course,  because  he  had  a  wife.  You 
see,  you're  terribly  mistaken."  He  must  be  im- 
pressed by  her  calm.  "Because  what  I  really  am 
is  a  vampire.  I  lured  a  man  from  his  wife,  lived 
with  him,  and  cast  him  aside." 

The  event  jumped  to  its  feet.  No  room  to  talk 
for  a  moment,  so  her  thought  resumed,  "I'm 
lying.  He  thinks  I'm  lying.  I  should  have  con- 
fessed in  tears.  With  a  few  '  Oh,  Gods. '  Amusing ! 
Amusing!  That  was  Erik's  favorite  word.  I'm 
beginning  to  understand  it  now.  But  there's 
nothing  to  be  amused  about  ...  in  itself  an 
amusing  circumstance  .  .  .  but  you  look  at  the 
banana  peddler  and  snicker.  Will  he  hit  me?  Oh, 
very  red-faced.  Speechless.  I'd  better  talk.  If 
he  hit  me.  .  .  .  He'll  start  in  a  minute.  ..." 

"Yes,  you  know  him,  George,"  she  cried  sud- 
denly. "And  if  you  doubt  me  you  can  ask  a  lot 
of  people.  Ask  Tesla  or  Mary  James  or  Brander 
or  New  York."  She'd  make  him  believe.  God, 
what  an  idiot !  She'd  claw  his  eyes  out  with  words. 
Throw  roofs  on  him.  But  it  was  a  good  thing  Erik 
was  in  Europe,  or  he'd  be  killed. 

"Yes.    I've  told  you  in  order  to  get  rid  of  you. 


Adventure  283 

I'd  rather  be  rid  of  you  than  keep  my  good  name 
in  your  estimation.  So  now,  run  along  and  do  your 
yelling  outside.  I'm  sick  of  you." 

She  paused  on  a  high  gesture.  .  .  .  "He's 
going  to  hit  me.  Strike  a  woman.  War  has 
brutalized  him.  Dear  me ! "  But  he  asked  a  ques- 
tion ominously  and  she  answered, 

"Erik  Dorn.    Yes.    Erik  Dorn." 

This  made  it  worse.  It  was  bad  enough  without 
a  name.  But  a  name  made  it  realler.  And  very 
ominous.  She  moved  toward  a  chair. 

"Ill  sit  still  and  then  he  won't  hit  me.  If  I'm 
calm,  serene  like  a  nun  facing  the  wrath  of  God. 
This  is  melodrama.  He  can  squeeze  my  shoulders 
all  he  wants.  What  good  will  it  do  him?  If  I 
giggled  now  he'd  kill  me.  Sorry?  Oh,  so  I  must 
be  sorry.  Because  I've  offended  him.  Dear  God, 
what  a  mess!" 

She  twisted  out  of  his  grasp  and  cried. 

"No,  I'm  not  sorry.  You  fool!  I'm  glad  I  was 
his  woman.  I'll  always  be  glad,  as  long  as  I 
live.  Leave  me  alone.  You're  a  fool.  I've 
always  thought  of  you  as  a  fool.  You  make 
me  want  to  laugh  now.  You're  a  clown.  I'll 
give  myself  to  men.  But  not  to  you.  I  gave 
myself  to  Erik  Dorn  because  I  love  him.  If  he 
wants  me  again  I'll  come  to  him  not  as  a  lover, 
because  he  doesn't  love  me  any  more — but  as  a 
prostitute.  Now  do  you  know  me?  Well,  I  want 
you  to.  So  you'll  go  way  and  never  bother  me 
again.  ..." 


284  Erik  Dorn 

That  was  a  good  speech.  She  stood  dramatically 
silent  as  hands  seized  her  shoulder  again.  "He 
hurts  me.  Why  this  ?  Oh,  my  shoulder !  Does  he 
want  to?  Oh,  God,  this  is  me!  He'll  let  me  go  in 
a  minute  if  I  don't  move.  Very  still.  Silent  .  .  . 
I  don't  want  him  to  cry.  Can't  he  see  it's  amusing  ? 
If  he'd  only  look  at  me  and  wink,  I'd  kiss  him.  No, 
he's  a  fool.  I'll  not  say  anything  more.  Let  him 
cry!  His  life  is  ruined.  Dear  me,  I  have  ruined 
his  life.  His  love.  I  was  his  dream.  Through 
the  war  .  .  .  rose  of  no-man's  land.  Amusing, 
amusing !  He  looks  different.  Contempt.  He  has 
contempt  for  me.  And  horror.  Oh,  get  out,  get 
out,  you  fool !  You  sniveling  nincompoop,  get  out ! 
I  want  to  draw  pictures,  and  forget.  Console 
him  .  .  .  for  what?  I  don't  know,  I  don't  know. 
He's  going.  Thank  God!  Oh,  I  don't  know  any- 
thing. Poor  man,  he  should  know  better  than  to 
have  dreams.  Dreams  are  for  devils,  not  for  men 
or  women.  Dreams  .  .  .  dreams  ...  I  don't 
know  .  .  .  I'll  draw  a  picture.  But  I  don't  want 
to.  He'll  never  come  back.  I'm  sad  again.  The 
flat  roof  says  something.  Is  it  Erik  ?  Dear  Erik ! 
Poor  Erik!  I  love  you.  But  I'll  begin  crying. 
Pretty  tears,  amusing  tears.  Erik  mine,  dead  for 
always.  But  it's  not  as  bad  as  it  was.  Another 
month,  year,  ten  years.  Oh,  it  chokes  me.  I  can't 
help  it.  Your  eyes  are  the  beckoning  hands  of 
dream.  Whose  eyes?  Mine  .  .  .  mine.  •'.  ,  . 
Mine  ...  I  know.  I  know.  I  must  keep  on 
dying,  keep  on  dying.  But  I'm  not  afraid.  Look, 


Adventure  285 

I  can  laugh !    Amusing  that  I  can  laugh  .  .  .  Oh, 
God  .  .  .  God 

Beside  her  window  looking  out  on  the  ant-hill 
street  Rachel  covered  her  face  with  her  hands. 
When  she  removed  them  she  caught  a  glimpse  of 
the  figure  of  Hazlitt  walking  as  if  it  were  a  blind 
man  in  zig-zags  down  the  pavement. 


CHAPTER  II 

•"THE  thing  that  had  been  buried  in  Emil  Tesla 
•*•  and  that  used  to  rumble  under  his  fawning 
words,  had  come  to  life*  one  day  with  two  men 
twisting  his  wrists  and  hammering  at  his  uncovered 
face.  He  had  laughed. 

The  two  men  came  into  his  office  to  seize  him. 
When  he  started  to  protest  they  walked  up  to  him 
slowly  as  if  to  shake  hands.  Instead,  they  began 
beating  him.  For  a  moment  he  wondered  why  the 
two  men  hated  him  so  violently.  He  stood  looking 
into  their  faces  and  thinking,  "  They  're  like  me." 

The  visitors,  however,  saw  no  resemblance. 
They  twisted  his  arm  till  it  broke.  Then  they  kept 
on  battering  at  him  with  their  fists  till  he  fell  to 
the  floor.  While  he  lay  on  the  floor  they  kicked 
him,  and  his  muscles  grew  paralyzed. 

He  never  remembered  the  walk  downstairs. 
But  in  the  open  he  saw  a  crowd  of  faces  drifting 
excitedly  beneath  him.  This  was  a  scene  he  re- 
membered later. 

It  was  while  looking  at  the  faces  that  he  had 
grown  strong.  He  laughed  because  it  occurred  to 
him  at  the  moment  he  was  unconquerable.  Later, 
in  prison,  he  often  thought,  "I  have  only  my  life 
to  lose.  I'm  not  afraid  of  that.  When  they  hit 

286 


Adventure  287 

me  they  were  hitting  at  an  idea.  But  they  could 
only  hit  me.  They  couldn't  touch  the  idea.  I'll 
remember  when  I  come  out — they  can  only  hit 
me.  If  they  end  by  shooting  me  they'll  not  touch 
the  idea  even  then .  That ' s  something  beyond  their 
fists  and  guns.  I'll  remember  I'm  only  a  shadow." 

A  year  passed  and  Tesla  came  out.  He  returned 
to  the  office  of  The  Cry.  His  friends  noticed  a 
change.  He  had  grown  quiet.  He  no  longer 
bubbled  with  words.  His  eyes  looked  straight  at 
people  who  spoke  to  him.  His  manner  whispered, 
"I'm  nothing — a  shadow  thrown  by  an  idea.  I 
don't  argue,  and  I'm  not  afraid.  I'm  part  of 
masses  of  people  all  over  the  world  and  cannot  be 
destroyed." 

The  new  Tesla  became  a  leader.  Among  the 
radicals  whose  intellects  were  groping  noisily  with 
the  idea  of  a  new  justice  he  often  inspired  a  fear. 
His  smile  disquieted  them  and  their  arguments. 
His  smile  said,  "Here,  what's  the  use  of  arguing? 
There  is  no  argument.  It  isn't  words  we  must 
give  the  revolution,  but  lives.  I'm  ready.  Here's 
mine." 

When  he  looked  at  men  and  women  who  voci- 
ferated in  the  councils  of  radical  pamphleteers, 
workers,  organizers,  theorists,  new  party  poli- 
ticians, Tesla  thought,  "That  one's  afraid.  He's 
only  a  logician.  His  mind  has  led  him  into  revolu- 
tion. If  he  changed  his  mind  he  would  become  a 
conservative.  .  .  .  There's  one  that  isn't  afraid. 
He's  like  me.  His  mind  helps  him.  But  no  matter 


288  Erik  Dorn 

what  his  mind  told  him  he  would  always  be  in  the 
revolution.  Something  in  him  drives  him.  .  .  *" 

For  the  rabble  of  artists  and  near-artists  drifting 
by  the  scores  into  radical  centers,  Tesla  held  a 
respectful  dislike. 

"He's  in  revolt  because  he  must  find  something 
different  than  other  people,"  he  thought  of  most 
of  them.  "The  revolution  to  him  means  only 
himself.  It's  something  he  can  use  to  make  himself 
felt  more  by  people.  And  also  he's  a  revolutionist 
because  of  the  contrariness  in  him  that  artists 
usually  have.  Especially  artists  who,  when  they 
can't  create  new  things,  make  themselves  think 
they're  creating  new  things  by  destroying  old 
things." 

Of  himself  Tesla  thought,  'Til  fight  and  not 
mind  if  I'm  killed.  Because  people  will  still  be 
left  alive,  and  so  the  idea  of  which  I'm  a  part  will 
continue  to  live." 

In  the  days  before  his  going  to  prison  Tesla  had 
felt  the  need  of  writing  and  talking  his  revolution. 
This  was  because  of  an  impatience  and  intolerance 
toward  the  enemy.  Now  that  was  gone.  The 
enemy  had  become  a  blatant,  trivial  thing.  The 
things  it  said  and  did  were  unimportant.  He  read 
with  amusement  the  rabid  denunciations  of  the 
radicals  in  the  press  of  the  day.  The  grotesque 
hate  hymns  against  the  new  Russia,  the  garbled 
shriekings  and  pompous  anathemas  that  fell 
hourly  upon  the  heads  of  all  suspects,  inspired  no 
argument  in  him. 


Adventure  289 

Tesla's  days  were  busy  with  organization.  He 
had  almost  ceased  his  activities  as  pamphleteer, 
although  still  editor  of  The  Cry.  With  a  group  of 
men,  silent  as  himself,  he  worked  at  the  radicaliza- 
tion  of  the  factories  and  labor  unions.  Each  day 
men  left  Tesla  to  seek  employment  in  shops 
throughout  the  country,  in  mines  and  mills.  Their 
duties  were  simple.  Tesla  measured  them  care- 
fully before  sending  them  on.  .  .  .  This  one 
could  be  relied  upon  to  work  intelligently,  to  talk 
to  workingmen  at  their  benches  and  during  noon 
hours  without  antagonizing,  or,  worse,  frightening 
them.  Another  was  dubious.  His  eyes  were  too 
bright.  He  would  be  discovered  and  arrested  by 
the  company.  But  he  might  do  some  good.  The 
arrest  of  a  radical  always  did  some  good  to  the 
cause.  Where  would  Christianity  have  been  with- 
out the  incompetent  agitators  who  blundered  into 
the  clutches  of  the  Roman  law  and  the  amphi- 
theater? 

Aloud  he  would  say,  "Work  carefully.  Re- 
member that  the  revolution  is  for  all;  that  the 
workers,  no  matter  what  they  say  to  you,  are 
comrades.  Remember  that  strikes  are  better  than 
fights.  The  time  hasn't  come  yet  for  fighting. 
What  we  must  do  is  put  into  the  hearts  of  the 
workers  the  knowledge  that  there  is  nothing  in 
common  between  them  and  their  bosses.  The 
workers  are  the  producers.  They  work  and  make 
no  money.  The  bosses  are  the  exploiters.  They 
don't  work  and  make  all  the  money.  If  you  get  the 
19 


290  Erik  Dorn 

workers  to  thinking  this  they'll  want  more  money 
themselves  and  declare  strikes.  By  strikes  we  can 
paralyze  industry  and  give  the  workers  conscious- 
ness of  their  power.  This  is  only  a  step;  but  the 
first  and  most  important  step.  Make  strikes. 
Make  dissatisfaction.  But  don't  argue  about 
fighting  and  revolution." 

Over  and  over  Tesla  repeated  his  instructions 
through  the  days.  He  spoke  simply.  Men  listened 
to  him  and  nodded  without  questioning.  They 
saw  that  his  eyes  were  unafraid  and  that  if  he  was 
sending  them  upon  dangerous  missions,  he  would 
some  day  reserve  a  greater  mission  for  himself. 
Tesla  had  become  a  leader  since  he  had  laughed  on 
the  step  overlooking  the  pack  of  faces. 


CHAPTER  III 

AT  his  desk  in  The  Cry  office  Tesla  was  preparing 
the  April  issue  of  the  magazine  for  the 
printer.  It  was  night.  A  garrulous  political  poet 
named  Myers  was  revising  proofs  at  a  smaller  desk. 
Brander  and  a  tall,  thin  woman  stood  talking 
quietly  to  each  other  in  a  gloomy  corner  of  the 
office.  Rachel,  who  had  returned  to  the  place 
after  a  hurried  supper  with  Tesla,  waited  listlessly. 
He  had  promised  to  finish  up  in  a  half -hour,  but 
there  was  more  work  than  he  had  figured. 

"We're  reprinting  a  part  of  the  article  on  the 
White  Terror  in  Germany  that  Erik  Dorn  has  in 
the  New  Opinion, ' '  Tesla  said.  Rachel  nodded  her 
head.  Later  Tesla  asked  her,  "This  Dorn,  what  is 
he?  His  writing  is  amusing,  sometimes  violent, 
but  always  empty.  He  doesn't  like  life  much,  eh  ? " 

"I  don't  know, "  said  Rachel. 

"Yes,"  Tesla  smiled.  "He  hates  us  all— reds 
and  whites,  radicals  and  bourgeoisie.  Yet  he  can 
write  in  a  big  way.  But  he  isn't  a  big  man.  He 
has  no  faith.  I  remember  him  once  in  Chicago. 
He  hasn't  changed." 

Rachel's  eyes  remained  steadily  upon  the 
socialist  as  he  cleared  his  desk.  He  stood  up  finally 
and  came  to  where  she  was  sitting. 

291 


292  Erik  Dorn 

"It's  necessary  to  have  something  besides  self," 
he  said  softly.  "  I  was  born  in  a  room  that  smelled 
bad.  Perhaps  that's  why  the  world  smells  bad  to 
me  now.  I  still  live  there.  It's  good  to  live  where 
there  are  smells.  Our  radicals  sit  too  much  in 
hotel  lobbies  that  other  people  keep  clean  for 
them." 

Brander  thrust  his  large  figure  between  them, 
the  tall,  thin  woman  moving  vaguely  about  the 
room. 

"Sometimes  I  think  you're  a  fake,  Emil, "  he 
said.  "You're  too  good  to  be  true." 

He  grinned  at  Rachel. 

"By  the  way,"  he  went  on,  looking  at  her,  "I 
brought  something  to  show  you."  His  hands  dug 
a  paper  out  of  his  coat  pocket.  "You  see,  I've 
preserved  our  correspondence." 

He  held  out  a  letter.    Rachel's  eyes  darkened. 

" Oh,  there's  no  hurry, "  Brander  laughed.  "So 
long  as  you  keep  the  application  on  file,  you 
know." 

Tesla,  listening  blankly,  interrupted : 

"It's  late.  We  should  go  home.  I'll  go  home 
with  you,  Rachel,  and  talk." 

The  thin  woman,  watching  Brander  anxiously, 
approached  and  seized  his  arm. 

"All  right,"  the  artist  whispered.  "We'll  go 
now." 

Rachel  felt  a  relief  as  Brander  passed  out  of  the 
door  with  the  woman. 

"He  disturbs  you,"   Tesla  commented.     She 


Adventure  293 

nodded  her  head.  Words  seemed  to  have  aban- 
doned her.  There  was  almost  a  necessity  for 
silence.  They  walked  out,  leaving  Myers  still  at 
his  desk. 

In  the  deserted  streets  Rachel  walked  beside 
Tesla.  She  felt  tired.  "He's  never  tired,"  she 
thought,  her  eyes  glancing  at  the  stocky  figure. 
He  wasn't  talking  as  he  said  he  would. 

The  night  felt  sad  and  cold.  A  dead  March 
night.  If  not  for  Emil,  what?  "Perhaps  I'll  kill 
myself.  There's  nothing  now.  I'm  always  alone. 
No  to-morrows." 

In  the  evenings  she  came  to  the  office  to  meet 
Emil  for  supper  because  there  was  nothing  else  to 
do.  Emil  seemed  like  an  old  man,  always  pre- 
occupied, his  eyes  always  burning  with  preoccupa- 
tions. After  supper  he  usually  walked  home  with 
her,  talking  to  her  of  poor  people.  There  seemed 
no  hatred  in  him,  no  argument.  Poor  people  in 
broken  houses.  Christ  came  and  gave  them  a 
God.  Now  the  revolution  would  come  with  flam- 
ing embittered  eyes  but  wearing  a  gentle  smile  for 
the  poor  people  in  broken  houses,  and  give  them 
rest  and  happiness. 

But  to-night  he  was  silent.  When  they  had 
walked  several  blocks  he  began  to  talk  without 
looking  at  her. 

" Come  with  me, "  he  asked.  "I  live  alone  in  a 
little  house.  We  can  be  happy  there.  You  have 
nobody." 

Rachel  repeated  "Nobody." 


294  Erik  Dorn 

She  looked  at  him  but  his  eyes  avoided  her. 

4 '  My  mother  died  long  ago, ' '  he  went  on.  ' '  She 
was  an  old  woman.  She  used  to  live  in  this  house 
where  I  live.  We  were  always  poor.  I  had 
brothers  and  sisters.  They've  all  gone  somewhere. 
Things  happened  to  them.  I  have  only  my  work 
now.  Nobody  else.  But  I'm  alone  too  much. 
Since  we  have  seen  each  other  I  have  been  thinking 
of  you.  Brander  has  told  me  something  but  that 
doesn't  matter.  I  would  like  to  marry  you." 

He  paused  and  seemed  to  grow  bewildered. 

11  Excuse  me,"  he  mumbled.  Rachel  took  his 
hand  and  held  it  as  they  walked.  Tears  in  her 
whispered  "Nobody  .  .  .  nobody."  The  homely 
face  of  Tesla  was  looking  at  her  and  saying  some- 
thing with  its  silence:  "I  am  not  for  you  as  Erik 
was.  But  that  is  gone.  Dead  for  always.  ..." 

He  was  kind.  It  would  be  easy  to  live  with  him. 
But  not  married.  A  chill  drifted  through  her.  It 
didn't  matter  what  she  did.  Life  had  ended  one 
afternoon  months  ago.  She  remembered  the  sun 
shining  on  the  sand,  the  burning  sea,  and  Erik 
asleep.  The  memory  said  "I  am  the  last  picture 
of  life." 

It  would  be  easy  with  Tesla.  He  loved  else- 
where ...  a  wild  gentle  thing — people.  Poor 
people  in  broken  houses.  He  would  give  her  only 
kindness  and  companionship.  And  if  he  would  let 
her  cry  to-night  and  make  believe  she  was  a  child 
crying.  .  .  . 

They  had  taken  a  different  direction.    This  was 


Adventure  295 

the  neighborhood  where  Tesla  lived.  Rachel 
looked  about  her  in  fear.  She  remembered  the 
district.  Now  she  was  coming  to  live  here  in  these 
streets  where  people  begin  to  give  forth  an  odor. 

As  she  walked  beside  Tesla  his  silence  became 
dark  like  the  scene  itself.  She  had  always  thought 
of  him  as  somewhat  strange.  Now  she  understood 
why  he  had  seemed  strange  to  her.  Because  he 
carried  an  underworld  in  his  heart.  In  his  nose 
there  was  always  the  odor  of  the  streets  from  which 
he  had  sprung,  and  in  his  mind  there  was  always 
the  picture  of  them.  Other  things  did  not  fool 
him. 

"Is  it  far?  "she  asked. 

He  looked  at  her,  smiling. 

"No,  "he  said.    "Dp  you  want  to  go?" 

She  pressed  his  hand.  It  would  be  better.  But 
her  heart  hurt.  That  was  foolish.  Emil  was  some- 
body different.  Not  like  a  man,  but  an  old  man — 
or  an  old  background.  There  would  be  things  to 
think  about — Revolution.  Before,  revolution  was 
people  arguing  and  being  dragged  to  jail.  Some- 
times people  fighting.  But  it  was  something  else — 
a  thing  hidden  and  spreading — and  here  in  the 
dark  street  about  them  where  Emil  lived. 

Emil  seemed  to  vanish  into  a  background.  She 
walked  and  thought  of  the  streets  in  which  Emil 
lived.  Here  in  the  daytime  the  rows  of  sagging 
little  houses  were  like  teeth  in  an  old  man's  mouth. 
From  them  arose  exhalations  of  stagnant  wood, 
decaying  stairways;  of  bodies  from  which  the 


296  Erik  Dorn 

sweats  of  lust  and  work  were  never  washed.  Soft 
bubbling  alleys  under  a  stiff  sun.  The  stench  like 
a  grime  leadened  the  air.  Something  to  think 
about  in  places  like  this.  Revolution  crawling  up 
and  down  soft  alleys  .  .  .  something  in  the  mud 
waiting  to  be  hatched. 

In  this  street  lived  men  and  women  whose 
hungers  were  not  complicated  by  trifles.  In  this 
way  they  were,  as  they  moved  thick-faced  and  un- 
smiling, different  from  the  people  who  lived  in 
other  streets  and  who  had  civilized  their  odors  and 
made  ethics  of  their  hungers.  The  people  who 
lived  here  walked  as  if  they  were  being  pushed  in 
and  out  of  the  sagging  houses.  Shrieking  children 
appeared  during  the  daytime  and  sprawled  about. 
They  rolled  over  one  another,  their  faces  contorted 
with  a  miniature  senility.  They  urinated  in  gutters, 
threw  stones  at  one  another  in  the  soft  alleys,  ran 
after  each  other,  cursing  and  gesturing  with  idiot 
violence.  They  brought  an  awkward  fever  into 
the  street.  Oblivious  of  them  and  the  debris 
about  them,  barrel-shaped  women  strutted  behind 
their  protuberant  bellies,  great  flapping  shoes  over 
the  pavements.  They  moved  as  if  unaccustomed 
to  walking  in  streets. 

When  it  grew  dark  the  men  coming  home  from 
the  factories  began  to  crowd  the  street.  They 
walked  in  silence,  a  broken  string  of  shuffling 
figures  like  letters  against  the  red  of  the  sky. 
Their  knees  bent,  their  jaws  shoved  forward,  their 
heads  wagged  from  side  to  side.  They  vanished 


Adventure  297 

into  the  sagging  houses,  and  the  night  came  .  .  . 
an  unwavering  gloom  picked  with  little  yellow 
glows  from  windows.  The  houses  lay  like  bundles 
of  carefully  piled  rags  in  the  darkness.  The  shriek- 
ing of  the  children  died,  and  with  it  the  pale  fever 
of  the  day  passed  out  of  the  air.  There  were  left 
only  the  odors. 

There  were  odors  now,  coming  to  them  as  they 
walked.  Invisible  banners  of  decay  floating  upon 
the  night.  Stench  of  fat  kitchens,  of  soft  bubbling 
alleys,  of  gleaming  refuse.  Indefinable  evapora- 
tions from  the  dark  bundles  of  houses  wherein 
people  had  packed  themselves  away.  They  came 
like  a  rust  into  her  nose. 

She  was  moving  into  a  new  world.  Drunken 
men  appeared  and  lurched  into  the  darkness  with 
cursings  and  mutterings.  Sometimes  they  sang. 
The  smoke  of  the  factory  chimneys  was  now  in- 
visible, but  the  chimneys,  like  rows  of  minarets, 
made  darker  streaks  in  the  gloom.  And  in  the 
distance  blast  furnaces  gutted  the  night  with  pink 
and  orange  flares.  Figures  of  girls  not  yet  shaped 
like  barrels  came  into  the  street  and  stood  for  long 
moments  in  the  shadows.  Rachel  watched  them 
as  she  passed.  They  moved  away  into  the  depths 
of  the  soft  alleys  and  vanished.  It  was  late  night. 
The  exhalations  of  alleys  and  houses  increased  as 
if  some  great  disintegration  was  stewing  in  the 
night.  A  new  world.  .  .  . 

Rachel's  fingers  reached  for  Tesla's  hand.  She 
felt  surprised.  There  was  no  thought  of  Erik. 


298  Erik  Dorn 

This  about  her  was  a  world  untouched  by  the 
shadow  Erik  had  left  behind.  So  she  could  live 
here  easily.  And  Emil  was  not  a  man  like  Erik. 
Erik,  who  stood  alone,  stark,  untouched  by  life. 
Emil  was  a  background.  It  would  be  easy.  Her 
fingers,  tightly  laced  in  his,  grew  cold.  Erik  would 
corne  back.  ' '  Come  back, ' '  murmured  her  thought. 
"Oh,  if  he  should  come  back!  No,  I  mustn't  fool 
myself.  It's  over.  And  I  can  either  live  or  die. 
I'll  live  a  little  while.  Why?  Because  I  still  love 
him.  Erik  mine!" 

But  it  didn't  sadden  her  to  walk  up  the  dark 
steps  of  Tesla's  house.  "Erik,  good-bye!"  Not 
even  that  mattered.  Erik  was  gone.  That  was 
all  something  else.  Not  gone.  Oh,  God,  no! 
Only  Erik  had  died.  She  still  lived  with  a  dead 
name  in  her  heart.  But  here  were  odors — strange 
people. 

It  was  barely  furnished  but  clean  inside.  Later 
Rachel  sat,  her  head  in  Tesla's  arms,  and 
wept.  She  was  not  sad.  Her  thought  faltered, 
reaching  for  words,  but  drifting  away.  This 
is  what  had  become  of  her — nothing  else  but 
this. 

Tesla  looked  quietly  at  her  and  kept  murmuring, 
"Little  girl,  the  world  is  big.  There  are  other 
things  than  self.  Must  you  cry?  Cry,  then.  I 
know  what  sadness  is." 

His  hands  moved  gently  through  her  loosened 
hair  and  he  smiled  sorrowfully. 


Adventure  299 

"Dear  child,"  he  whispered,  "you  can  always 
cry  in  my  arms  and  I  will  understand.  It  is  the 
way  the  world  sometimes  cries  in  my  heart.  I 
understand.  .  .  .  Yes  .  .  .  yes.  ..." 


CHAPTER  IV 

A  KALEIDOSCOPE  of  cities.  A  new  garrulity. 
*»•  Words  like  busy  little  brooms  sweeping  up 
after  a  war.  A  world  of  foreigners.  Europe  was 
running  about  with  empty  pockets  and  a  cracked 
head.  England  had  had  a  nose-bleed,  France  a 
temporary  castration,  and  the  president  of  the 
United  States  was  walking  around  in  Paris  in  an 
immaculate  frock-coat  and  a  high  silk  hat.  The 
President  was  closeted  in  a  peace  conference  mum- 
bling valorously  amid  lifted  eyebrows,  amused 
shoulder  shruggings,  ironic  sighings.  A  long-faced 
virgin  trapped  in  a  bawdy  house  and  calling  in 
valiant  tones  for  a  glass  of  lemonade. 

Erik  Dorn  drifted  through  a  haze  of  weeks. 
This  was  London.  This,  Paris.  This,  Rotterdam. 
And  this,  after  a  long,  cold  ride  standing  up  in  a 
windowless  coach,  Berlin.  But  all  curiously  alike. 
People  in  all  of  them  who  said,  "We  are  strangers 
to  you." 

There  was  nothing  to  see.  No  impressions  to 
receive.  More  cities,  more  people,  more  words  and 
a  detachment.  The  detachment  was  Europe.  In 
his  own  country  there  was  no  detachment.  He  was 
a  part  of  crowds,  newspapers,  buildings.  Here  he 
was  outside.  Familiar  things  looked  strange.  The 

300 


Adventure  301 

eyes  busied  themselves  trying  to  forget  things 
before  them,  scurrying  after  details  and  worried 
by  an  unrelation  in  architecture,  faces,  gestures. 

It  was  mid- December  when  he  sat  in  a  hotel 
room  in  Berlin  one  night  and  ate  blue-colored  fish, 
boiled  potatoes,  and  black,  soggy  bread.  He  had 
been  wandering  for  days  through  snow-covered 
streets.  Now  there  was  shooting  in  the  streets. 

" Germany  is  starving,"  said  an  acquaintance. 
"Our  children  are  dying  off  by  the  thousands, 
thanks  to  the  inhuman  blockade." 

But  despite  even  the  shooting  in  the  streets 
Dorn  noticed  the  Germans  had  lost  interest  in  the 
war.  The  idea  of  the  war  had  collapsed.  In  Eng- 
land and  France  the  idea  was  still  vaguely  alive. 
People  kept  it  alive  by  discussing  it.  But  even 
there  it  had  become  something  unnatural. 

One  thing  there  was  in  common.  Only  a  few 
people  seemed  to  have  been  killed.  London  was 
jammed.  Even  though  the  newspapers  summed  it 
up  now  and  then  with  "a  generation  has  been 
killed/'  Paris,  too,  was  jammed.  And  Berlin  now, 
jammed  also.  The  war  had  been  fought  by  people 
who  were  dead.  And  the  people  who  were  alive 
were  living  away  its  memory. 

In  Berlin  a  week,  and  he  thought,  "A  circus  has 
pulled  down  its  tent,  carted  off  its  gaudy  wagons, 
its  naphtha  lights,  and  its  boxes  of  sawdust.  And 
a  new  show  is  staking  out  the  lot." 

The  new  show  was  coming  to  Berlin.  Fences 
and  building  walls  were  plastered  with  its  litho- 


302  Erik  Dorn 

graphs  .  .  .  "The  Spirit  of  Bolshevism  Marches 
.  .  .  Beware  the  Wrecker  of  Mankind.  .  .  . " 
Posters  of  gorillas  chewing  on  bloody  knives,  of 
fiends  with  stringy  hair  setting  the  torch  to  orphan- 
ages and  other  nobly  drawn  edifices  labeled 
"Kultur,  Civilization,  Humanitat.  .  .  ."  The 
spielers  were  already  on  the  job.  Machine-guns 
barked  in  the  snow-covered  streets.  A  man  named 
Noske  was  a  Bluthund.  A  man  named  Liebknecht 
was  a  Schweinhund. 

In  his  hotel  room  Dorn,  eating  blue-colored  fish, 
spoke  to  an  acquaintance — an  erudite  young  Ger- 
man who  wore  a  monocle,  whose  eyes  twinkled 
with  an  odd  humor,  and  who  under  the  influence 
of  a  bottle  of  Sekt  was  vociferating  passionately 
in  behalf  of  a  thing  he  called  Welt  Revolution. 

"  I  don't  understand  it  yet,  von  Stinnes, "  Dorn 
smiled.  "I  will  later.  So  far  I've  managed  to  do 
nothing  more  than  enjoy  myself.  Profundity  is 
diverting  in  New  York,  but  a  bore  in  Berlin. 
There's  too  much  of  it.  Good  God,  man,  there  are 
times  when  I  feel  that  even  the  buildings  of  the 
city  are  wrapped  in  thought." 

Von  Stinnes  gestured  with  an  almost  English 
awkwardness.  His  English  contained  a  slight 
French  accent.  His  words,  amused,  careless, 
carried  decision.  He  spoke  knowingly,  notwith- 
standing the  Sekt  and  the  smile  with  which  he 
seemed  to  be  belying  his  remarks.  Thus,  the 
Majority  Socialists  were  traitors.  Scheidemann 
had  sold  the  revolution  for  a  kiss  from  Graf  Rant- 


Adventure  303 

zau.  The  masses.  .  .  .  "Ah,  m'sieur,  they  are 
arming.  There  will  be  an  overthrow."  And  then, 
Ludendorff  had  framed  the  revolution — actually 
manufactured  it.  All  the  old  officers  were  back. 
Noske  was  allowing  them  to  reorganize  the  mili- 
tary. The  thing  was  a  farce.  Social  Democracy 
had  failed.  The  country  was  already  in  flames. 
There  would  be  things  happening.  "You  wait 
and  see.  Yes,  the  Spartikusten  will  do  some- 
thing. .  ." 

Dorn  nodded  appreciatively.  He  felt  instinc- 
tively that  he  had  stumbled  upon  a  man  of  value 
and  service.  But  he  listened  carelessly.  As  yet 
the  scene  was  more  absorbing  than  its  details. 
The  local  politik  boiling  beneath  the  collapse  of 
the  empire  had  not  yet  struck  his  imagination. 
There  were  large  lines  to  look  at  first,  and  absorb. 

Snow  in  unfamiliar  streets,  night  soldier  patrols 
firing  at  shadows,  eager-eyed  women  in  the  hotel 
lobbies,  marines  carousing  in  the  Kaiser's  Schloss 
— a  nation  in  collapse.  Teutonia  on  her  rump, 
helmet  tilted  over  an  eye,  hair  down,  comely  and 
unmilitary  legs  thrust  out,  showing  her  drawers 
and  laughing.  Yes,  the  Germans  were  laughing. 
Where  was  there  gayety  like  the  Palais  de  Danse, 
the  Fox  Trot  Klubs,  Pauligs;  gayety  like  the 
drunken  soldiers  patrolling  Wilhelmstrasse  where 
a  paunchy  harness-maker  sat  in  Bismarck's  chair? 

Gayety  with  a  rumble  and  a  darkness  under- 
neath. But  such  things  were  only  wilder  accents 
to  laughter.  If  the  detachment  would  leave  him, 


304  Erik  Dorn 

if  he  could  familiarize  himself,  he  could  lay  hands 
on  something;  dance  away  in  a  macabre  mardi- 
gras. 

Two  bottles  of  Sekt  had  been  emptied.  A  polite 
Ober  responded  with  a  third.  Von  Stinnes  grew 
eloquent. 

"Not  before  March,  Mr.  Dorn.  It  will  come 
only  then.  This  that  you  hear  now,  pouf !  Hungry 
men  looking  for  crumbs  with  hand-grenades.  The 
revolution  is  only  picking  its  teeth.  But  wait.  It 
will  overturn,  when  it  comes.  And  even  if  it  does 
not  overturn,  if  it  fails,  it  will  not  end,  but  pause. 
You  hear  it  whispering  now  in  the  streets.  Hungry 
men  with  hand-grenades.  Ah,  m'sieur,  if  you  wish 
we  will  work  together.  I  am  a  man  of  many  ac- 
quaintances. I  am  von  Stinnes,  Baron  von  Stinnes 
of  a  very  old,  a  very  dissolute,  a  very  worthless 
family.  I  am  the  last  von  Stinnes.  The  dear  God 
Himself  glows  at  the  thought.  I  will  work  for  you 
as  secretary.  How  much  do  you  offer  for  a  scion 
of  the  nobility?" 

"Three  hundred  marks." 

"A  month?" 

"No,  weekly,"  laughed  Dorn,  "and  you  buy 
half  the  liquor." 

Von  Stinnes  bowed. 

"An  insult,  Mr.  Dorn.  But  I  overlook  it.  One 
becomes  adept  in  the  matter  of  overlooking  insults. 
You  will  need  me.  I  am  known  everywhere.  I 
was  with  Liebknecht  in  the  Schloss  when  he  slept 
in  the  Kaiser's  bed.  Ho !  it  was  a  symbol  for  you 


Adventure  305 

to  see  him  crawl  between  the  sheets.  Alas!  he 
slept  but  poorly,  with  the  marines  standing  guard 
and  frowning  at  the  bed  as  if  it  were  capable  of 
something.  For  me,  I  would  have  preferred  beds 
with  more  pleasant  associations.  And  when  Bode 
tried  to  be  dictator  in  his  father's  chamber  in  the 
Reichstag — yes,"  von  Stinnes  closed  his  eyes  and 
laughed  softly,  "he  seized  the  Reichstag  with  a 
company  of  marines.  And  he  sat  for  two  days  and 
two  nights  signing  warrants,  confiscation  orders. 
Until  a  soldier  brought  him  a  document  issued  by 
Eichorn  the  mysterious  policeman  who  was  dic- 
tating from  the  Stadt  House.  And  poor  Bode 
signed  it.  He  was  sleepy.  He  could  not  read  with 
sleep.  It  was  his  own  death  warrant.  It  was  I  who 
saved  him  1:  y  taking  him  to  the  house  of  Milly. 
He  slept  fo-  JT  days  with  Milly,  in  itself  a  feat." 

Von  Stinnes  swallowed  another  glass  of  wine. 
His  eyes  seemed  to  belie  his  unsteady,  careless 
voice.  His  eyes  remained  intent  and  mocking 
upon  Dorn. 

"You  have  come  a  few  weeks  too  late.  There 
were  scenes,  dear  God,  to  make  one  laugh.  In  the 
Schloss.  Yes,  we  bombarded  the  Schloss — but 
after  we  had  captured  it.  The  Liebknecht  ordered. 
Everything  was  done  in  symbols.  Therefore  the 
symbol  of  the  bombardment  of  the  Schloss.  So  we 
rushed  out  one  night  and  opened  fire,  and  when  we 
had  knocked  off  the  balcony  and  peeled  the  plaster 
from  the  walls,  we  rushed  in  again  and  sang  the 
Marseillaise.  What  wine,  m'sieur!  Ho,  you  have 

20 


306  Erik  Dorn 

come  a  few  weeks  too  late.  But  there  will  be  other 
comedies.  And  I  will  be  of  service.  I  belong  to 
three  officers'  clubs.  One  of  them  is  respectable. 
Women  are  admitted.  The  other  two  .  .  . 
women  are  barred.  And  look.  ..."  He  slapped 
a  wallet  on  the  table  and  extracted  a  red  card, 
'"  member  of  the  Communist  Partei — Karl 
Stinnes,"  he  read.  "Listen,  there  are  75,000 
rifles  in  Alexander  Platz,  waiting  for  the  day." 

"Where  did  you  learn  your  English,  von 
Stinnes?" 

"Oxford.  Italian  in  Padua.  French,  m'sieur, 
in  Paris.  During  the  war."  The  baron  laughed. 
"Ah,  pendant  la  guerre,  m'sieur,  en  Paris." 

"And  now,"  Dorn  mused,  "you  are  a  Sparti- 
kust." 

The  baron  was  on  his  feet,  a  wine  glass  raised 
in  his  hand. 

"Es  lebe  die  Welt  Revolution, "  he  cried,  "es  lebe 
das  Rate  Republik!" 

"What  did  you  do  in  Paris,  von  Stinnes?" 

"  Pigeons,  my  friend.  I  played  with  pigeons  and 
with  vital  statistics  and  made  love  to  little  French 
girls  whose  sweethearts  were  dying  in  the  trenches. 
And  in  London.  But  I  talk  too  much.  Yes,  my 
tongue  slips,  you  say.  But  I  am  lonely  and  talk 
is  easy.  ...  I  drink  your  health  .  .  .  heinl  it 
was  a  day  when  we  met.  ..." 

Dorn  raised  his  glass. 

"To  the  confusion  of  the  seven  deadly  virtues!" 
he  laughed. 


Adventure  307 

"I  drink,"  the  baron  cried.  "We  will  make  a 
tour.  We  will  amuse  ourselves.  I  see  that  you 
understand  Germany.  Because  you  understand 
there  is  something  bigger  than  Germany ;  that  the 
world  is  the  head  of  a  pin  spinning  round  in  a  glass 
of  wine.  I  have  been  with  the  other  correspondents. 
Pigs  and  donkeys.  The  souls  of  shopkeepers  under 
the  vests." 

The  baron  seated  himself  carefully  and  pre- 
tended an  abrupt  seriousness. 

' '  I  have  made  up  my  mind  to  die  behind  the  red 
barricades.  Perhaps  in  March.  Perhaps  later. 
Another  glass,  m'sieur.  Thanks.  I  shall  die  fight- 
ing for  the  overthrow  of  the  tyranny  of  the  bour- 
geoisie .  .  .  Noske  and  his  parvenu  Huns.  Ho! 
Dorn,  we  will  amuse  ourselves  in  a  crazy  world, 
eh,  what  ?  The  tyranny  of  the  bourgeoisie ! ' ' 

The  baron  laughed  as  he  rolled  over  the  phrase. 

"There  will  be  great  deal  to  enjoy,"  Dorn 
smiled.  The  wine  was  making  him  silent. 

"Yes,  to  enjoy.  To  laugh,"  the  baron  inter- 
rupted. "I  cannot  explain  now.  But  you  seem  to 
understand.  Or  am  I  drunk?  Ein  galgen  gelachter, 
nicht  wahr?  I  will  take  quarters  at  the  hotel.  I 
know  the  management  well.  I  saved  the  place 
from  being  looted  in  the  November  excitement. 
Have  you  seen  the  Kaiser  Salle?  His  Majesty 
dined  there  once.  A  witless  popinjay.  Liebknecht 
is  a  man.  Flames  in  his  heart.  But  a  poor  orator. 
He  will  be  killed.  They  must  kill  him.  A  little 
Jew,  Haase,  has  brains.  You  will  meet  him.  And 


308  Erik  Dorn 

the  Dadaists — they  know  how  to  laugh.  The  cult 
of  the  absurd.  Perhaps  the  next  emperor  of  Ger- 
many will  be  a  Dada.  An  Ober  Dada — who 
knows?  Once  the  world  learns  to  laugh  we  may 
expect  radical  changes.  And  in  Miinchen  I  know 
a  dancer,  Mizzi.  Dear  God,  what  legs !  You  must 
come  there  to  see  legs.  Faces  in  the  Rhineland. 
Ankles  in  Vienna.  But  legs,  dear  God,  in  Miin- 
chen !  It  is  the  Spanish  influence.  Let  us  drink  to 
Mizzi.  ..." 

The  wine  was  vanishing.  The  baron  paused  out 
of  breath  and  sighed.  His  face  that  seemed  to 
grow  firmer  and  more  ascetic  as  he  drank,  took  on 
a  far-away  shrewdness  as  if  new  ideas  had  sur- 
prised it. 

"I've  felt  many  things,"  Dorn  spoke,  "but 
thought  nothing  yet.  So  far  Europe  has  remained 
strange.  I  am  in  a  theater  watching  a  pantomime. 
I  have  entered  in  the  middle  of  the  second  act  and 
the  plot  is  a  bit  hidden.  But  we  will  have  to  find 
some  serious  work  to  do.  I  must  meet  poli- 
ticians, leaders;  listen  to  laments  and  prophe- 
cies. .  .  ." 

"All  in  time,  all  in  time, "  the  baron  interrupted. 
"Am  I  not  your  secretary?  Well,  then,  trust  me. 
You  will  talk  to-morrow  with  Ebert.  We  begin 
thus  at  the  bottom.  Of  all  men  in  Germany  who 
know  nothing,  he  knows  least.  Thursday,  Scheide- 
mann.  Treachery  requires  some  shrewdness. 
The  man  is  not  quite  an  imbecile.  If  your  Roose- 
velt were  a  Socialist  he  would  be  a  Scheidemann. 


Adventure  309 

Daumig,  Pasadowsky,  Erzburger — rely  upon  me, 
m'sieur.  And  LudendorfL  Ah,  there  we  have 
real  work.  If  Ludendorff  will  talk  now.  He  is 
supposed  to  be  in  Berlin.  I  will  find  him  and 
arrange  for  you.  And  so  on.  You  will  meet  all 
the  great  minds,  all  the  big  stomachs.  I  will  take 
you  to  Radek  who  is  hiding  with  a  price  on  his 
head.  And  Dr.  Talheimer  on  the  Rote  Fahne,  if 
they  do  not  arrest  him  too  soon.  Bernstorff  is  in 
the  hotel.  A  man  with  too  much  brains.  Yes,  an 
intelligent  bungler.  He  will  die  some  day  with  a 
sad  smile,  forgiving  his  enemies.  And  if  we  need 
women,  mention  your  choice.  Mine  runs  to  the 
married  woman  of  title.  A  small  title  is  to  be  pre- 
ferred. It  is  a  slight  insurance  against  disease. 
Others  prefer  the  gamins.  There  is  not  enough 
difference  to  quarrel  about.  Or  do  you  want  a  little 
red  in  your  amours?  A  sans  culotte  from  Ehrfurst 
or  Spandau?  In  Essen  you  will  find  Belgian 
women.  They  will  love  for  nothing.  For  that 
matter,  a  bottle  of  wine  and  a  bar  of  chocolate 
and  you  can  have  anyone.  There  is  no  virtue  left, 
thank  God.  And  yet,  for  variety,  I  sometimes 
think  there  should  be  a  little.  Ah,  yes,  yes !  I  miss 
the  virgins  of  my  youth.  Another  bottle,  eh? 
Where's  the  button?  What  do  you  think  of  Ger- 
man plumbing?  It  is  our  Kultur.  We  are  proud 
of  our  plumbing.  It  was  the  ideal  for  which  we 
fought.  To  introduce  our  plumbing  through- 
out Europe — make  a  German  bathroom  of  the 
world." 


310  Erik  Dorn 

A  sound  of  heavier  firing  in  the  streets  inter- 
rupted. The  two  sat  listening,  the  baron's  face 
alive  with  an  odd  humor. 

"Es  lebe  die  Welt  Revolution,"  he  whispered. 
"Do  you  hear  it?  Only  a  murmur.  But  it  starts 
all  over  Germany  again.  Workingmen  with  guns. 
You  will  see  them  later.  I  among  them.  Stay  in 
Europe,  my  friend,  and  see  the  ghost  of  Marat 
rising  from  a  German  bathtub." 

* '  Who  are  shooting  ? ' '  Dorn  asked. 

"Shadows,"  the  baron  laughed.  "The  govern- 
ment wishes  to  impress  the  good  burgher  that 
there  is  danger.  So  the  government  orders  the 
soldiers  to  shoot  at  midnight.  The  good  burgher 
wakes  and  trembles.  Mein  Gott,  das  Bolshevismus 
treibt!  Gott  sei  dank  fur  den  Regierung.  ...  So 
the  good  burgher  gives  enthusiastic  assent  to  the 
increase  in  the  military  budget.  Dear  God,  did  he 
not  hear  shooting  at  midnight?  But  they  play 
with  more  than  ghosts.  Noske's  politik  will  end 
in  another  color.  To-night  there  are  only  shadows 
to  shoot  at.  To-morrow  .  .  .  remember  what  I 
tell  you.  .  .  ." 

The  telephone  rang  and  Dorn  answered.  A 
voice  in  English: 

"The  gentlemen  will  have  to  put  out  the  lights. 
The  Spartikusten  are  coming." 

"Thank  you.  ..." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"We  must  put  out  the  lights." 

The  baron  laughed. 


Adventure  31 1 

"It  is  nonsense.  Come,  your  hat.  We  will  go 
have  a  look." 

They  hurried  down  to  the  lobby.  An  iron  door 
had  been  drawn  across  the  entrance  of  the  hotel. 
In  the  lobby  the  shooting  seemed  a  bombardment 
of  the  building.  A  group  of  American  and  Eng- 
lish correspondents  were  lounging  in  the  heavy 
divans,  drinking  gin  and  talking  to  a  trio  of 
elaborately  gowned  women.  The  talk  was  in 
French. 

"Hello,  Dorn, "  one  of  the  Englishmen  called. 
Dorn  approached  the  table,  von  Stinnes  following, 
and  whispering,  "I  will  request  the  porter  to  open 
the  gate." 

"Baron  von  Stinnes,  Mr.  Reading." 

The  Englishman  shook  hands  and  smiled. 

"I  know  the  baron,  Dorn.  Rather  old  friends, 
what  ?  Have  a  drink,  damn  it ! " 

' '  Later,  if  you  please, "  von  Stinnes  bowed  stiffly. 
Reading  beckoned  Dorn  aside  with  an  air  of  se- 
crecy. Walking  him  to  another  part  of  the  lobby 
he  began  whispering : 

"I'd  let  that  blighter  alone  if  I  were  you,  Dorn. 
I'm  just  telling  you  because  you're  rather  new  to 
these  bloody  swine." 

Dorn  nodded. 

' '  I  see, "  he  said,  and  walked  back  to  von  Stinnes. 
Reading  resumed  his  place  with  the  party. 

"Perhaps  it  was  a  timely  warning,"  the  baron 
murmured  as  Dorn  drew  near  him.  The  gate  had 
been  opened  and  the  two  emerged.  "I  make  a 


Erik  Dorn 


guess  at  what  Reading  told  you,"  the  baron 
pursued. 

'  '  It  is  immaterial,  "  Dorn  answered.  '  '  I  engage 
you  not  for  your  honesty  and  many  virtues,  but 
because  you're  amusing.  ..." 

^'Thus  you  relieve  my  conscience,  "  von  Stinnes 
sighed. 

The  wide  avenue  was  deserted.  Moonlight  lay 
on  the  new-fallen  snow.  A  line  of  soldiers  wheeled 
suddenly  out  of  the  Brandenburger  Tor  and  came 
marching  quickly  toward  the  walkers. 

"Welter  gehen,  welter  gehen,"  a  voice  from  the 
troop  called.  Two  detached  themselves  from  the 
ranks  and  approached  rapidly. 

"Ausweise.  ..." 

Von  Stinnes  glared  through  his  monocle  and 
answered  in  German,  "What  is  the  matter  with 
you?  Are  you  crazy?  I  am  Baron  von  Stinnes. 
My  friend  is  a  member  of  the  American  Commis- 


sion." 


Dorn  extracted  a  bit  of  stamped  paper — his 
special  credentials  from  the  German  Foreign  Office. 
The  soldier  glanced  at  it  without  troubling  to 
read.  .  .  . 

"Sehr  gut,  meln  Herrschaften,"  he  mumbled. 
Dorn  caught  a  glimpse  of  his  face.  Its  importance 
had  vanished.  The  line  of  soldiers  marched  on. 
When  they  had  turned  a  corner  the  sound  of  firing 
suddenly  resumed. 

"Shadows  again,  "  chuckled  von  Stinnes. 

Snow-covered  streets,  moonlight,  waiting  build- 


Adventure  3J3 

ings,  cold  and  shadows — here  was  reality.  The 
thing  under  the  gay  tumult  of  the  caf6s.  Under 
the  baron's  laughter.  They  were  passing  a  stretch 
of  empty  shop  windows. 

1 '  It's  cold, "  Dorn  muttered.  The  baron  looked 
at  him  with  a  smile. 

"It  is  cold  everywhere  in  Germany,"  he  said 
quietly.  "Men's  hearts  are  cold  with  hunger  and 
fear.  Brains  are  confused.  Stomachs  empty.  The 
top  has  been  knocked  off.  The  soldiers  in  the  streets 
are  the  sad  little  remains  of  a  dead  Germany. 
The  new  Germany  lies  cold  and  hungry  in  a  work- 
ingman's  bed.  Life  will  come  out  of  the  masses. 
And  I  am  always  on  the  side  of  life.  Not  so?  The 
old  is  dead.  We  drink  wine  to  the  new/' 

The  sound  of  dance  music  drifted  out  of  a  cafe. 

"Shall  we  stop?"  the  baron  hesitated. 

Dorn  shook  his  head. 

"Enough  cafes.  The  streets  are  better.  Dark 
windows." 

They  walked  in  silence  through  the  snow,  the 
baron  humming  a  Vienna  waltz  as  the  blurred 
echoes  of  machine-gun  fire  rose  in  the  night  around 
them. 

.  .  .  Hours  later  Dorn  lay  sleepless  in  his  bed. 
The  smoke  of  wine  was  slipping  out  of  his  thought. 

"I'm  alone,"  he  murmured  to  himself.  An 
emotionless  regret  came  to  him. 

"There  are  still  years  to  live."  He  wrapped 
himself  closer  in  the  silk-covered  quilts.  "But 
how?  Does  it  matter?  I  have  loved,  and  that  is 


3H  Erik  Dorn 

over.  Rachel  is  ended.  Haven't  thought  of  her 
for  weeks.  And  now,  I  am  like  I  was,  only  older 
and  alone;  yet  not  sad.  So  people  adjust  them- 
selves to  decay.  Senses  that  could  have  under- 
stood and  wept  at  sorrow  die,  along  with  the  things 
whose  death  causes  sorrow.  Ergo,  there  is  no 
sorrow.  Wings  gone,  tears  gone,  everything  gone. 
Empty  again,  yet  content.  I  want  nothing.  .  .  . 
No  desires.  .  .  . " 

His  brain  was  mumbling  sleepily  as  the  cold 
wind  from  the  opened  window  swept  pleasantly 
through  the  room. 

"Women  to  divert  me.  Wine  to  make  me  glad. 
And  a  companion — the  baron.  Droll  tragedian! 
And  scenes  for  my  eyes.  Yes,  yes.  .  .  .  They 
keep  shooting  outside.  Still  shooting  after  five 
years.  Shooting  each  other.  The  world  speaks  a 
strange  language.  What  imbecility !  Yet  life  is  in 
the  masses.  It'll  come  out,  perhaps.  From  Russia. 
Russians — a  pack  of  idealists  ...  a  pack  of  il- 
literate Wilsons  with  whiskers.  I 'm  like  the  baron. 
I  admire  revolution.  Why?  Because  it  diverts." 

He  closed  his  eyes  for  moments.  Still  no  sleep, 
and  his  thought  resumed,  "Rachel,  I  once  loved 
you.  I  can  say  it  now  without  hurt.  Empty 
memories  now — like  drawings  in  outline.  And 
some  day  even  the  outlines  will  leave  me." 

A  curious  ache  came  into  his  heart.  "Ah,  she 
still  touches  me — still  a  little.  Poor  dear  one! 
What  a  farce !  A  glorious  farce !  The  nights  when 
she  whispered.  Her  face,  I  remember,  yes,  a  little. 


Adventure  315 

Ghosts!  Your  eyes  are  the  beckoning  hands  of 
dream.  That  was  the  best  sentence.  .  .  .  The 
rest  were  good  too — sometimes." 

He  smiled  sleepily  on  his  pillow  .  .  .  "still 
shooting.  It  will  be  amusing  here.  Some  day 
when  we're  old,  Rachel  and  I  will  see  each  other 
again.  Old  eyes  questioning  old  eyes.  Old  eyes 
saying.  'So  much  has  died.  Only  a  little  more 
remains  to  die.'  Sleep  ...  I  must  sleep  now. 
To-morrow,  work,  work !  And  forget.  But  noth- 
ing to  forget.  It  forgets  itself.  It  says  good-bye. 
A  sun  gone  down.  What  is  it  old  Carl  wrote?  .  .  . 
'The  past  is  a  bucket  of  ashes,  a  sun  gone  down 
.  .  .  to-morrow  is  another  day.  .  .  .'" 


CHAPTER  V 

HPHE  detachment  vanished.  Streets  familiar- 
*  ized  themselves. 

"Ich  steh  auf  den  Standpunkt,"  said  the  politi- 
cians; and  the  racket  of  machine-guns  offered  an 
obligato. 

The  new  garrulity  that  had  seemed  strange  to 
Dorn  lost  its  strangeness.  It  became  the  victrola 
phrases  of  a  bewildered  diplomacy.  But  the 
diplomacy  was  not  confined  to  frock-coats.  It 
buzzed,  snarled  up  and  down  the  factory  districts, 
in  and  out  of  the  boulevard  cafes  and  the  squat 
resident  sectors. 

The  German  waiting  for  the  knife  of  Versailles 
to  fall  was  vomiting  a  vocabulary  of  fear,  hope, 
threat,  despair.  Under  cover  of  a  confused  Social 
Democracy  the  German  army  was  slowly  reorgan- 
izing itself. 

It  was  three  months  after  his  arrival  in  Berlin 
that  Dorn  wrote  his  curious  sketch  of  the  German 
situation.  The  three  months  had  witnessed  a 
change  in  him.  He  had  become  a  workman — 
industrious,  inquisitive,  determined.  Under  the 
guidance  of  von  Stinnes  he  had  managed  to  pene- 
trate the  heart  of  German  politik.  Tours  through 
the  provinces,  daily  interviews  with  celebrities, 

316 


Adventure  31? 

statesmen,  leaders  of  the  scores  of  political  fac- 
tions ;  adventures  under  the  surface  of  the  victrola 
phrases  pouring  from  the  government  buildings 
and  the  anti-government  buildings,  had  occupied 
even  his  introspections.  Seemingly  the  empire 
had  turned  itself  into  a  debating  society.  Life 
had  become  a  class  in  economics. 

Three  months  of  work.  Unfocused  talents 
drawn  into  simultaneous  activity.  And  Dorn 
arose  one  morning  to  find  himself  an  outstanding 
figure  in  the  turmoil  of  comment  and  commenta- 
tors about  him.  Von  Stinnes  had  wheedled  his 
history  out  of  him  for  publication  in  Berlin.  Its 
appearance  was  greeted  with  a  journalistic  shout 
in  the  capitol.  Radicals  and  conservatives  alike 
pounced  upon  it.  Haase,  leader  of  the  Independ- 
ent Socialists,  declaimed  it  almost  in  full  before  the 
National  Assembly  in  Weimar. 

Dorn  had  put  into  it  a  passionate  sense  of  the 
irony  and  futility  of  his  day.  Its  clarity  arrested 
the  obfuscated  intellect  of  a  nation  groping,  whin- 
ing, and  blustering  under  the  shadow  of  the  knife 
of  Versailles. 

The  writing  of  it  had  rid  him  for  the  time  of 
Rachel,  of  Anna,  of  the  years  of  befuddling  empti- 
ness that  had  marked  his  attitudes  toward  the 
surfaces  of  thought  about  him.  The  emotionless 
disillusion  of  his  nature  had  finally  produced  an 
adventure  for  him — the  adventure  of  mental 
fecundity. 

He  had  gone  to  Weimar  to  write.    Here  the 


3i 8  Erik  Dorn 

new  government  of  Germany  had  assembled. 
Delegates,  celebrities,  frock-coats,  strange  hair 
formations;  messiah  and  magician  had  come  to 
extricate  the  nation  from  its  unhappy  place  on 
the  European  guillotine.  The  narrow  streets 
stuttered  with  argument.  .  .  .  Von  Stinnes  and 
a  girl  named  Mathilde  Dohmann  accompanied  him 
to  the  town.  The  Baron,  bored  for  the  moment 
with  his  labors,  had  immersed  his  volatile  self  in  a 
diligent  pursuit  of  Mathilde.  He  had  discovered 
her  among  communist  councils  in  Berlin  and 
naively  attached  her  as  a  part  of  Dorn's  secretarial 
retinue. 

"She  will  be  of  service,"  he  announced. 

Dorn,  preoccupied  with  the  scheme  of  his  his- 
tory, paid  little  attention  to  her.  Arrived  in 
Weimar  he  became  entirely  active,  viewing  with 
amusement  the  Baron's  sophisticated  assault  upon 
the  ardent- voiced,  red-haired  political  spitfire 
whom  he  called  Matty.  Alone  in  an  old  tavern 
room,  he  gave  himself  to  the  arrangements  of 
words  clamoring  for  utterance  in  his  thought.  Old 
words.  Old  ideas.  Notions  dormant  since  years 
ago.  Phrases,  ironies  remembered  out  of  con- 
versations themselves  forgotten.  The  book  was 
finished  towards  the  middle  of  March — a  history 
of  the  post-war  Germany;  with  a  biography  be- 
tween the  lines  of  Erik  Dorn.  Von  Stinnes  had 
forthwith  produced  two  German  scholars  who, 
under  his  direction,  accomplished  the  translation 
with  astonishing  speed.  Excerpts  from  the  thin 


Adventure  3*9 

red-  and  black-covered  volume  found  their  way 
overnight  into  the  press  of  the  nation.  Periodicals 
seized  upon  the  extended  brochure  as  a  Dokument. 
In  pamphlet  form  the  gist  of  it  started  upon  the 
rounds  of  Europe.  The  garrulity  of  the  day  had 
been  given  for  the  moment  a  new  direction. 


"We  will  go  to  Munich.     There  will  be  a  re- 
volution in  Munich.     I  have  news  from  secret 


sources." 


Baron  von  Stinnes,  lounging  wearily  in  front 
of  a  chess-board,  spoke  and  raised  a  cup  of  mocha 
to  his  lips.  Dorn,  picking  his  way  through  a 
German  novel,  looked  up  gloomily  and  nodded. 

"Anywhere,"  he  agreed.  "Munich,  Moscow, 
Peking." 

In  a  corner  of  the  room  Mathilde  was  curled  on 
the  luxurious  hotel  divan  watching  through  half- 
closed  eyes  the  figures  of  the  men.  The  Baron 
turned  toward  her  and  frowned.  In  return  her 
face,  almost  asleep,  became  vivid  with  a  sneer. 
The  Baron's  love-making  had  gone  astray. 

4 '  Matty  is  going  to  try  to  carry  a  million  marks 
into  Munich  for  the  Communists,"  he  announced. 

The  girl  stared  von  Stinnes  into  silence. 

"How  do  you  know  that?"  she  asked  slowly. 

He  lowered  his  cup  and  with  a  show  of  polite 
deliberation  removed  his  monocle  and  wiped  it 
with  a  silk  handkerchief. 

"I    know    many    things,"    he    smiled.     "The 


320  Erik  Dorn 

money  comes  from  Dr.  Kasnilov  and  will  be 
brought  to  Dr.  Max  Levine  in  Munich,  and  the 
good  Max  will  buy  a  garrison  of  Landwehr  with 
it  and  establish  the  soviet  republic  of  Bavaria. " 

* '  You  know  Levine  ? ' ' 

"  Very  well,"  smiled  the  Baron. 

Mathilde  sat  up.  Her  voice  acquired  a  vicious 
dullness. 

"You  will  not  interfere  with  me,  von  Stinnes." 

"I,  Matty? "  The  Baron  laughed  and  resumed 
his  mocha.  "I  am  heart  and  soul  with  Levine. 
If  Dorn  cannot  go  I  will  have  to  go  alone.  It 
is  necessary  I  be  in  Munich  when  the  Soviets  are 
called  out." 

"You  will  not  interfere  with  me,  von  Stinnes," 
the  girl  repeated,  "or  I  will  kill  you." 

"You  have  my  permission,  Fraulein.  The 
logical  time  for  my  death  is  long  past." 

Mathilde 's  sharp  young  face  had  grown  alive 
with  excitement.  She  sat  with  her  eyes  unwaver- 
ingly upon  the  Baron  as  if  her  thought  were  grop- 
ing desperately  beneath  the  smiling  weariness  of 
the  man. 

"Mr.  Dorn,"  she  spoke,  "von  Stinnes  is  a 
traitor." 

Dorn  smiled. 

"If  one  million  marks  will  cause  a  revolution, 
I'll  take  them  to  Munich  myself,"  he  answered. 
"I'm  sick  of  Berlin.  I  need  a  revolution  to  divert 
me." 

"I  fear  I  am  in  the  way,"  von  Stinnes  inter- 


Adventure  321 

rupted.  He  arose  with  formality.  "Mathilde 
would  like  to  unburden  herself  to  you,  Dorn.  I 
am,  she  will  inform  you,  a  secret  agent  of  Colonel 
Nickolai,  and  Colonel  Nickolai  is  the  head  of  the 
anti-bolshevist  pro-royalist  propaganda  in  Prus- 
sia." He  paused  and  smiled.  "I  will  meet  you 
in  the  lobby  when  you  come  down." 

He  walked  toward  the  door,  halting  before  the 
excited  face  of  the  girl. 

"Ah,  Matty,  Matty,"  he  murmured,  "you  will 
not  in  your  zeal  forget  that  I  love  you?" 

He  bowed  whimsically  and  passed  out.  Dorn 
laid  aside  his  book  and  approached  the  divan.  In 
the  week  since  their  return  from  Weimar  he  had 
become  interested  in  the  moody,  dynamic  young 
creature.  The  fact  that  she  had  resisted  the  ex- 
pert persuasions  of  the  Baron — a  subject  on  which 
the  nobleman  had  discoursed  piquantly  on  their 
ride  to  Berlin — had  appealed  to  him. 

"Karl  is  a  good  fellow,"  he  said,  seating  himself 
next  to  her.  "And  if  it  happens  he  is  employed 
by  Noske  and  Nickolai  it  doesn't  alter  my  opinion 
of  him." 

"He  is  a  scoundrel,"  she  answered  quietly. 

"That  is  impossible,"  Dorn  smiled.  "He  is 
merely  a  man  without  convictions  and  therefore 
free  to  follow  his  impulses  and  his  employers.  I 
thank  God  for  von  Stinnes.  He  has  made  Europe 
possible.  A  revolution  alone  could  rival  him  in 
my  affections." 

The  girl  remained  silent,  and  Dorn  watched 

31 


332  Erik  Dorn 

her  face.  He  might  embrace  her  and  make  love. 
It  would  perhaps  flatter,  please  her.  She  fancied 
him  a  man  of  astounding  genius.  She  had  prac- 
tically memorized  his  book.  Thus,  one  had  only 
to  smile  humorlessly,  permit  one's  eyes  to  grow 
enigmatic,  and  think  of  a  proper  epigram.  He  re- 
called for  an  instant  the  two  women  who  had 
succumbed  to  his  technique  since  he  had  left 
America.  They  blurred  in  his  memory  and  be- 
came offensive.  Yet  Matty  had  been  of  service 
and  perhaps  her  moodiness  was  caused  by  a  sup- 
pressed affection.  As  an  amorous  prospect  she 
was  not  without  interest.  As  a  reality,  however, 
she  would  obviously  become  a  bore.  In  any  case 
there  was  nothing  to  hinder  polite  investigation, 
mark  time  with  kisses  until  von  Stinnes  brought 
on  his  promised  revolution.  He  thought  carefully. 
Pessimism  was  the  proper  note.  Dramatize  with 
an  epigram  the  emptiness  of  life.  His  forte — 
emptiness.  Not  love  but  a  hunger  to  live. 

"Matty,  I  regret  sadly,  that  you  are  not  a 
prostitute." 

Startling! 

' '  It  would  save  me  the  trouble  of  having  to  fall 
in  love  with  you,  dear  child." 

She  smiled,  a  sudden  amusement  in  her  eyes. 

"You  too,  Mr.  Dorn.  I  had  thought  different 
of  you." 

"As  a  creature  beyond  the  petty  agitations, 
eh?" 

"As  a  man." 


Adventure  323 

"It  is  possible  for  a  Man,  despite  a  capital  Mf 
to  love." 

"Yes,  love.  It  is  possible  for  him  only  to  love. 
And  you  do  not." 

* '  Much  worse .     I  am  sad . ' ' 

"Why?" 

"Perhaps  because  it  is  the  only  emotion  that 
comes  without  effort." 

"So  you  would  fall  in  love  with  me  to  forget 
that  I  bore  you." 

"A  broader  ambition  than  that.  To  forget 
that  living  bores  me,  Mathilde." 

"There  is  someone  else  you  love,  Mr.  Dorn." 

"There  was."  He  smiled  humorlessly.  "Do 
you  mind  if  I  talk  of  love?  I  need  a  conversa- 
tional antidote." 

"And  if  you  talk  of  love  you  may  be  spared  the 
trouble  of  having  to  make  love,"  she  laughed 
quietly.  * '  But  I  would  rather  talk  of  von  Stinnes. 
I  am  worried." 

"You  are  young,"  Dorn  interrupted,  "and  full 
of  political  error.  I  am  beginning  to  believe  von 
Stinnes.  The  most  terrible  result  of  the  war  has 
been  the  political  mania  it  has  given  to  women." 

Mathilde  settled  back  on  the  divan  and  stared 
with  mocking  pensiveness  at  her  shoes.  Dorn, 
speaking  as  if  he  desired  to  smile,  continued : 

' '  Do  you  know  that  when  one  has  loved  a  woman 
one  grows  sad  after  it  is  ended,  remembering  not 
the  woman ,  but  one ' s  self  ?  The  memory  of  her  be- 
comes a  mirror  that  gives  you  back  the  image  of 


324  Erik  Dorn 

something  that  has  died — a  shadow  of  youth  and 
joy  that  still  bears  your  name.  It  is  the  same  with 
old  songs,  old  perfumes.  All  mirrors.  So  I  walk 
through  life  now  smiling  into  mirrors  that  give 
back  not  myself,  but  someone  else — another 
Dorn." 

He  arose  and  looked  down  at  her. 

"Does  that  interest  you?" 

"I  understand  you." 

"There  are  many  ways  of  making  love.  Sor- 
rowful phrases  are  the  most  entertaining,  perhaps. " 

"You  make  me  think  you  have  loved  too  much/' 

' '  Yes,  it  would  be  difficult  to  kiss  you.  I  would 
become  sad  with  memory  of  other  kisses.  Be- 
cause you  are  young — as  I  was  then." 

"Was  it  long  ago?" 

"Things  that  end  are  always  long  ago." 

"Then  it  was  only  yesterday." 

"Yes,  yesterday,"  he  laughed,  pleased  with  the 
ironic  sound  of  his  voice.  "And  what  is  longer 
ago  than  yesterday?" 

She  had  risen  and  stood  before  him,  an  almost 
boyish  figure  with  her  fists  clenched. 

"I  have  something  else  I  am  in  love  with,"  she 
whispered.  "  I  am  in  love  with " 

"The  wonderful  revolution,  I  know." 

"Yes." 

"And  some  day  in  the  future  you,  too,  will  look 
into  a  mirror  and  see  not  yourself  but  a  glowing- 
faced  girl  that  was  in  love  with  what  was  once 
called  the  revolution." 


Adventure  325 

"But  if  things  end  it  is  only  because  we  are  too 
weak  to  hold  them  forever.  So  while  we  are 
strong  we  must  hold  them  twice  as  eagerly." 

"Sad.  All  most  deplorably  sad,  Mathilde. 
Hands  shuffle  us  into  new  combinations,  when  we 
would  prefer  the  old.  Thus  you,  too,  will  some 
day  listen  to  the  cry  that  rises  from  all  endings." 

"You  are  designing.  You  wish  to  make  me 
sad,  Mr.  Dorn.  And  succeed." 

"Only  that  I  may  contemplate  the  futility  of 
your  love  and  smile.  As  I  cannot  quite  smile  at 
my  own.  We  do  not  smile  easily  at  corpses." 

His  hands  covered  her  fingers  gently. 

"I  will  give  myself  to  you,  if  you  wish,"  she 
whispered. 

"And  I  prefer  you  like  this,"  he  smiled.  "If 
you  will  come  close  to  me  and  lay  your  head  against 
me."  He  looked  down  at  her  as  she  obeyed. 
"There  is  an  odor  to  your  hair.  And  your  cheek 
is  soft.  These  things  are  similar  things.  You 
are  almost  like  a  phantom." 

"Of  her." 

"No.  She  is  forgotten.  It's  something  else. 
A  phantom  of  something  that  once  lived  in  me, 
and  died.  It  comes  back  and  stares  at  me  some- 
times out  of  the  eyes  of  strange  women,  out  of  the 
sounds  of  music.  Now,  out  of  your  hair." 

"And  you  do  not  want  me,  Erik?" 

"I  want  you.  But  I  prefer  to  amuse  myself  by 
fancying  that  you  are  unattainable." 

"I've  liked  you,  Erik.     The  rest  does  not  matter 


326  Erik  Dorn 

to  me.  I  grew  old  during  the  war,  and  careless. 
My  father  and  two  brothers  died.  And  another 
man." 

"So  we  both  need  diversion." 

"Yes." 

"Diversion,"  he  murmured,  "the  little  drug. 
But  what  is  there  to  drugs?  No,  come;  we  are 
lovers  now." 

"We  will  go  to  Munich  together." 

"Yes." 

"And  will  you  carry  the  money  for  Levine? 
They  would  never  search  you  and  they  might  re- 
cognize and  search  me.  And  besides,  von  Stinnes 
would  not  dare  interfere  if  it  was  you,  even  if  he  is 
a  spy,  because  he  likes  you  too  well." 

Her  voice  had  become  eager  and  vibrant.  Dorn 
smiled  ruefully,  the  faint  mist  of  a  sigh  in  his 
thought.  The  girl  had  worked  adroitly.  Of  course, 
he  was  someone  to  carry  the  money  to  the  Munich 
radicals. 

"It  is  just  an  ordinary-looking  package.  The 
station  will  be  under  a  guard  and  all  the  roads 
coming  in,  too.  They  are  expecting  the  revolu- 
tion and  .  .  . "  She  paused  and  grew  red. 
Dorn's  eyes  were  looking  at  her  banteringly. 
"You  are  thinking  I  have  tricked  you,"  she  cried, 
"and  that  it  was  only  to  use  you  as  a  .  .  .  as  a 
carrier  that  I  ...  Well,  perhaps  it  is  true.  I 
do  not  know  myself.  I  told  you  you  could  have 
me.  Yes,  I  give  myself  to  you  now  .  .  .  now 
.  .  .  Do  you  hear?" 


Adventure  327 

She  laughed  with  bitterness. 

"I  have  never  given  myself  before.  I  would 
rather  you  smiled  and  were  kind.  But  if  you  wish 
to  laugh  .  .  .  and  call  it  a  bargain  ...  it 
does  not  matter." 

She  had  stepped  away  from  him  and  stood  with 
kindled  eyes,  waiting. 

"One  can  be  chivalrous  in  the  absence  of  all 
other  impulses,  Mathilde.  And  all  other  impulses 
have  expired  in  me.  So  I  will  take  the  package. 
We  will  start  to-morrow  early.  And  as  for  the 
rest  ...  I  will  spare  you  the  tedium  of 
martyrdom." 

He  moved  toward  the  door.  "Come,  we'll 
go  downstairs.  Von  Stinnes  will  be  getting 
impatient." 

Mathilde  came  to  him  swiftly.  He  caught  a 
glimpse  of  her  face  lighted,  and  her  arms  circled 
his  neck.  She  was  looking  at  him  without  words. 
A  coldness  dropped  into  his  heart.  There  had 
been  three  of  them  before — he,  Mathilde,  and  a 
phantom.  Now  there  were  only  Mathilde  and 
himself. 

"She  was  not  tricking,"  he  thought,  and  felt 
pleased.  "At  least  not  consciously." 

Her  arms  fell  from  him  and  she  stared  f  right  - 
enedly. 

"Forgive  me,  Erik.  I  thought  you  loved  me. 
And  I  would  have  liked  to  make  you  happy.  ..." 

He  nodded  and  opened  the  door. 


CHAPTER  VI 

'T'HEY  sat  in  the  compartment  of  the  train 
*  crawling  into  Munich.  The  Baron  drooped 
with  sleep.  Dorn  stared  wearily  out  of  the  win- 
dow. Springtime.  A  beginning  of  green  in  the 
fields  and  over  the  roll  of  hills.  Formal  sunlight 
upon  factories  with  an  empty  holiday  frown  in 
their  windows. 

"I  hear  shooting,"  he  smiled  at  Mathilde. 
"We're  probably  in  time." 

The  girl  nodded.  Despite  the  sleepless  night 
sitting  upright  in  the  compartment,  her  eyes  were 
fresh  and  alive.  The  desultory  crack  of  a  rifle 
drifting  out  of  the  town  as  if  to  greet  them  brought 
an  impatience  into  her  manner.  The  train  was 
moving  slowly. 

"Yes,  we're  in  time,"  she  murmured.  "See, 
the  white  guards  are  still  in  possession." 

A  group  of  soldiers  with  white  sleeve-bands  over 
the  gray-green  of  their  uniforms  passed  in  an 
empty  street. 

"There  will  be  white  guards  at  the  station,  too," 
she  went  on.  "The  attack  will  come  to-night. 
It  must." 

She  looked  intently  at  von  Stinnes  who,  open- 
328 


Adventure  329 

ing    his   eyes    suddenly,    whispered,    "Ah,   Ma- 

thilde  .    .    .  there  was  once  another  Munchen. 
ii 

An  uproar  in  the  station.  A  scurry  of  guards 
and  soldiers.  White  sleeve-bands.  Machine- 
guns  behind  heaped  bags  of  sand.  A  halloo  of 
orders  across  the  arc  of  the  spacious  shed.  Pas- 
sengers pouring  out  of  the  newly  arrived  train, 
smiling,  weeping,  staring  indifferently. 

The  officer  desired  the  passengers  to  line  them- 
selves up  against  the  train.  A  suggestive  order, 
and  confusion.  Whispers  in  the  crowd.  .  .  . 
"Personally,  I  prefer  the  guillotine.  .  .  .  No, 
no,  madame.  There  is  no  danger.  These  are 
good  boys.  Soldiers  of  the  government.  You 
can  tell  by  the  sleeve-bands.  White.  Merely 
baggage  inspection." 

Dorn  waited  his  turn.  A  group  of  soldiers 
approached  slowly,  delving  into  pockets  for 
weapons,  peering  into  opened  pieces  of  baggage. 
Babble,  expostulation,  eager  politeness  of  innocent 
travelers,  and  outside  the  long  crack  of  rifles,  an 
occasional  rip  of  a  machine-gun.  The  group  of 
soldiers  paused  before  him. 

"I  am  an  American,"  he  spoke  in  English, 
"with  the  American  commission." 

The  announcement  produced  its  usual  effect. 
Bows,  salutes,  smiles.  He  pulled  out  his  passport 
and  foreign-office  credentials.  An  officer  stepped 
forward  and  glanced  at  them. 

"Very  good,"  in  courteous  English,  "you  will 


330  Erik  Dorn 

pardon  for  the  delay.  We  are  having  a  little 
trouble  here." 

He  indicated  the  city  with  a  nod  of  his  head  and 
smiled  wryly.  In  German  he  continued  sharply, 
"Gottlieb,  Neuman,  you  will  escort  this  gentle- 
man and  his  friends  to  whatever  place  they  wish 
to  go.  Take  my  car  at  post  10." 

Two  soldiers  saluted.  The  officer  bowed  with 
a  smile.  The  travelers  moved  off  with  their  es- 
cort toward  the  street.  Mathilde  kept  her 
eyes  on  von  Stinnes  as  they  entered  a  gray 
automobile. 

"Von  Stinnes  and  I  will  sit  in  the  back,"  she 
whispered  to  Dorn. 

The  Baron  nodded. 

"Careful  of  your  Leugger,"  he  whispered,  "the 
soldiers  will  see  it.  You  can  shoot  me  just  as 
easily  if  you  keep  it  hidden.  I  have  frequently 
fired  through  my  pocket." 

In  a  hotel  room  a  half -hour  later,  Mathilde, 
grown  jubilant  as  a  child,  was  clapping  her  hands 
and  laughing. 

"It  was  too  simple!"  she  cried. 

Dorn  drew  a  small  suitcase  from  under  the  bed 
and  opened  it. 

"Here  it  is,"  he  laughed.  He  removed  an  ob- 
long package.  His  eyes  sought  von  Stinnes, 
standing  near  the  window  leisurely  smoking 
a  cigarette. 

"You  will  find  Levine  in  the  Gambrinus  Keller," 
von  Stinnes  spoke  without  turning  around.  "I 


Adventure  33 1 

advise  you  to  go  at  once,  Matty,  before  the  streets 
crowd  up." 

He  wheeled  and  held  an  envelope  toward  the 
girl. 

' '  Take  this.  It  will  make  it  easier  for  you  to  get 
in.  They  are  very  careful  right  now.  It's  a  letter 
of  credentials  from  Dr.  Kasnilov." 

Mathilde  opened  the  envelope  mechanically, 
her  eyes  seeking  the  thought  under  the  Baron's 
smile. 

"Thanks,"  she  spoke  in  German.  "I  will  go 
now.  I  will  see  you  after.  At  dinner  to-night. 
Here." 

She  walked  quickly  from  the  room,  the  oblong 
package  under  her  arm. 


CHAPTER  VII 

•"THE  thing  hiding  in  the  alleys  and  shops  of  the 
*•  world — the  dark,  furtive  hungers  that  Russia 
was  thawing  into  life,  emerged  on  a  bright  April 
day  in  the  streets  of  Munich.  Working  men  with 
guns.  A  sweep  of  spike-haired,  deep-eyed  troglo- 
dytes from  the  underworld  of  labor.  Factories, 
shops,  and  alleys  vomited  them  forth.  Farm 
hovels  and  stinking  bundles  of  houses  sent  them 
singing  and  roaring  down  the  forbidden  avenues, 
past  the  forbidden  sanctuaries  of  satrap  and 
burgher. 

From  behind  curtained  windows  the  upper 
world  looked  on  with  amazement  and  disgust.  A 
topsy-turvy  April  morning.  A  Spring  day  gone 
mad.  Here  were  the  masses  celebrated  in  pam- 
phlet and  soap-box  oration.  An  ungodly  spec- 
tacle, an  overturning.  Grinning  earth  faces,  roar- 
ing earth  voices  come  swaggering  into  the  hallowed 
precincts  of  civilization.  Workingmen  with  guns 
marching  to  take  possession  of  the  world.  An  old 
tableau  decked  with  new  phrases — the  underfed 
barbarian  at  the  gate  of  the  grainary. 

The  singing  and  the  roaring  continued  through 
the  morning. 

"Es  lebe  die  Welt  Revolution!  Es  lebe  das  Rate 
332 


Adventure  333 

Republik!    Hoch!    die    soviet    von    Bayern  .    .    . 
Hoch!  Hoch!1' 

From  the  twisting,  blackened  streets,  "Hoch!" 
Men  and  women  squeezing  aimlessly  around 
corners.  Closely  packed  drifts  of  bobbing  heads. 
A  crack  of  rifles  dropping  punctuations  into  the 
scene.  "Hoch!  Hock!"  from  faces  clustered 
darkly  about  the  grimacing,  inaudible  orators 
in  the  squares. 

Red  flags,  red  placards  like  a  swarm  of  confetti 
on  the  walls  and  in  the  air.  A  holiday  war.  .  .  •>.- 
The  morning  hours  marched  away. 

With  noon,  a  silence  gradually  darkened  the 
scene.  A  silence  of  shuffling  feet  and  murmuring 
tongues.  The  revolution  had  sung  its  songs.  An 
end  of  songs  and  cheerings.  Drifting,  silent 
masses.  An  ominous,  enigmatic  sweep  of  faces. 
Red  placards  under  foot  in  cubist  designs  down 
the  streets. 

The  afternoon  waned,  the  hundred  thousands 
closed  in.  Darkness  was  coming  and  the  pack  was 
welding  itself  together.  Rifles  were  beginning. 
Machine-guns  were  beginning.  Holiday  was  over. 
Quieter  streets.  The  orators  become  audible. 
Still  faces,  raised  and  listening.  The  orators  had 
news  to  give.  .  .  .  One  of  the  garrisons  had 
gone  over  to  the  Soviets.  Two  garrisons  had 
vanished.  Treachery.  A  long  murmur  .  .  . 
treachery.  The  armies  of  General  Hoffmann  were 
marching  upon  Munich  .  .  .  twenty  kilometers 
from  Munich.  They  would  arrive  in  the  night. 


334  Erik  Dorn 

.  .  .  "We  will  show  them,  comrades,  whether 
the  revolution  has  teeth  to  bite  as  well  as  a  song 
to  sing.'* 

A  growl  was  running  through  the  twilight. 
....  Eslebe  das  Rate  Republik!  A  fierce  whis- 
per of  voices.  Workingmen  looking  to  their  guns, 
massing  about  the  government  buildings.  A  new 
war  minister  in  the  uniform  of  a  marine,  speaking 
from  a  balcony.  Workingmen  with  guns,  listening. 
Women  drifting  back  to  the  hovels  and  stinking 
bundles  of  houses.  In  the  cafes,  satraps  and 
burghers  eating  amid  a  suppressed  clamor  of  whis- 
pers, plans.  The  foolishness  was  almost  over. 
The  armies  of  General  Hoffmann  were  coming  .  .  . 
Twenty  kilometers  out.  .  .  .  Arrive  at  night. 
The  corps  students  themselves  would  saber  the 
swine  out  of  the  city.  .  .  . 

Night.  Darkened  streets.  Tattered  patrols 
hurrying  through  mysteriously  emptied  highways, 
shouting,  "Indoors!  Inside,  everybody!"  Sud- 
denly from  a  distance  the  bay  of  artillery.  Work- 
ingmen with  guns  were  storming  the  cannon  of 
the  artillery  regiment  outside  the  city.  A  hap- 
hazard cross-fire  of  rifles  began  to  spit  from  dark- 
ened windows  ...  an  upper  world  showing  its 
teeth  behind  parlor  barricades. 

In  the  shadows  of  the  massive  government 
buildings  an  army  was  forming.  No  ranks,  no 
officers.  Easy  to  drift  through  the  sunny  streets 
singing  the  Marseillaise  and  the  International 
...  to  mooch  along  through  the  forbidden 


Adventure  335 

avenues  dreaming  in  the  daylight  of  a  new  world 
.  .  .  with  red  flags  proclaiming  the  new  masters 
of  earth.  Hundred  thousands,  then.  But  now, 
how  many?  Too  dark  to  see,  to  count.  An 
army,  perhaps.  Perhaps  a  handful.  .  .  . 

Feverish  salutes  in  the  shadows.  .  .  .  tl  Gruss 
Gott,  genosse!" 

Was  it  alive?  Did  the  revolution  live?  What 
was  happening  in  the  empty  streets?  Who  was 
shooting?  And  the  armies  of  Hoffmann?  Gruss 
Gott,  genosse.  Under  Rupprecht  the  armies  had 
lain  four  years  in  the  trenches.  Great  armies, 
swinging  along  like  a  single  man,  that  had  once 
battered  their  way  almost  into  Paris  against  the 
English,  against  the  French. 

"Gruss  Gott,  genosse.  Hoffmann  kommt  .  .  . 
Ja  wohl,  Gruss  Gott!" 

Now  twenty  kilometers  away  and  coming  down 
the  highroad  against  Munich — against  the  drifting 
little  clusters  of  lonely  men  whispering  in  the 
shadows — the  great  armies  of  the  Kaiser,  an  iron 
monster  clicking  down  the  road  toward  Munich. 
Would  there  be  artillery  to  meet  them?  Gruss 
Gott,  genosse,  wer  shusst  dort?  No,  they  had  only 
guns,  old  guns  that  might  not  shoot.  Old  knives 
at  their  belts.  .  .  .  Darkness  and  rifle-spat- 
tered silences.  Where  was  the  revolution?  The 
shadows  whispered,  lt  Gruss  Gott.  ..." 

The  shadows  began  to  stir.  A  voice  was  talking 
in  the  night.  High  up  from  a  window.  Egel- 
hofer,  the  communist.  No,  Levine.  Who?  A 


336  Erik  Dorn 

light  in  the  window.  .  .  .  Egelhofer,  thin-faced, 
tall,  black-haired.  Egelhofer,  the  new  war  min- 
ister. 'Shh!  what  was  he  saying?  .  .  .  "Vor- 
waerts,  der  Banhoff.  .  .  .  " 

Yes,  the  armies  of  Hoffmann  had  come.  The 
shadows  stirred  wildly.  Forward  .  .  .  es  lebe 
die  Welt  Revolution!  This  time  a  battle-cry, 
hoarse,  shaking.  Men  were  running.  Working- 
men  with  guns,  guns  that  would  shoot  .  .  .  "Der 
Banhoff  .  .  .  der  Banhoff.  ..." 

The  shadows  were  emptying  themselves.  A 
pack  was  running.  Two  abreast,  three  abreast, 
in  broken  strings  of  men.  Groups,  solitary  figures, 
hatless,  bellowing.  The  revolution  was  moving. 
The  empty  streets  filled.  An  army?  A  hand- 
ful? Let  God  show  in  the  morning.  Working- 
men  with  guns  were  running  through  the  night. 
Munich  was  shaking.  .  .  .  "Der  Banhoff.  genosse, 
vonvaerts!" 

The  revolution  was  emptying  itself  into  the 
great  square  fronting  the  station.  Little  lights 
twinkling  outside  the  ancient  weinstubes  began  to 
explode.  There  must  be  darkness.  Pop!  .  .  . 
pop !  .  .  .  a  rattle  of  glass.  A  blaze  of  shooting. 
The  railroad  station  was  firing  now. 

"Es  lebe  das  Rate  Republik!"  from  the  darkness  in 
the  streets.  A  sweep  of  figures  across  the  open 
square.  Arms  twisting,  leaping  in  sudden  glares 
of  flame.  The  revolution  hurled  itself  with  a  long 
cry  upon  the  barricades  of  thundering  lead. 

In  the  single  lighted  window  of  the  government 


Adventure  337 

buildings  a  face  still  spoke  .  .  .  "Ich  bin  Egel- 
hofer,  ihr  Krieg's  minister  .  .  .  Ich  komm.  .  .  . " 

Waving  a  rifle  over  his  head,  the  war  minister 
rushed  from  the  building.  A  marine  from  Kiel. 
A  new  pack  loosened  itself  from  the  shadows.  A 
war  minister  was  leading. 

Moving  swiftly  through  the  streets,  Dorn  hur- 
ried to  the  seat  of  the  new  government — the 
Wittelbacher  Palais.  Von  Stinnes  was  waiting 
there.  He  had  been  delayed  in  joining  the  Baron 
by  the  sudden  upheaval  about  the  hotel. 

The  wave  had  passed.  Almost  safe  now  to 
skirt  the  scene  of  battle  and  make  a  try  for  the 
Palais.  As  he  darted  out  of  the  darkened  hotel 
entrance,  the  thing  seemed  for  a  moment  under 
his  nose.  An  oppressive  intimacy  of  tumult. 

"They're  at  the  station,"  he  thought.  "I'll 
have  to  hurry  in  case  they  fall  back." 

He  ran  quickly  in  an  opposite  direction  followed 
by  the  leap  of  firing.  Several  blocks,  and  he 
paused.  Here  was  safety.  The  revolution  a 
good  half-mile  off.  He  walked  slowly,  recovering 
breath.  The  street  was  lighted.  Shop  windows 
blinked  out  upon  the  pavements.  A  few  stragglers 
walked  like  himself,  intent  upon  destinations 
made  serious  by  the  near  sound  of  firing.  An 
interesting  evening,  thus  far.  A  stout,  red-faced 
man  with  a  heavily  ornamented  vest  followed  the 
figure  of  a  woman.  Dorn  smiled.  Biology  versus 
politics.  .  .  .  "Excuse  me,  pretty  one,  you  look 
lonely.  ..."  A  charwoman.  Black,  sagging 


338  Erik  Dorn 

clothes.  Dorn  passed  and  heard  her  exclaim, 
"Who,  me?  You  ask  me  to  go  with  you?  Dear 
God,  he  asks  me !  I  am  an  honest  workingwoman. 
Run  along  with  you!"  The  woman,  walking 
swiftly,  drew  alongside.  She  was  chuckling  and 
muttering  to  herself,  a  curious  pride  in  her  voice, 
"He  asked  me,  dear  God— me!" 

The  abrupt  sound  of  rifle-fire  around  the  corner 
startled  her.  Dorn  halted.  The  woman  turned 
toward  him,  puzzled. 

"They  are  shooting  a  whole  lot  to-night,"  she 
spoke  in  German. 

"Quite  a  lot,"  he  answered. 

She  looked  back  at  the  red-faced  man  who  had 
remained  where  she  had  left  him. 

"What  do  you  think  of  that  dunce?"  she  whis- 
pered, and  hurried  on. 

Dorn  followed  leisurely  in  the  direction  of  the 
Palais. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

A  RABBLE  of  dictators,  ministerial  fledglings, 
freshly  sprouted  governors,  organizers,  de- 
partmental heads,  scurried  through  the  dimly 
lighted  corridors  of  the  old  Palais.  Dorn,  with 
the  aid  of  a  handful  of  communist  credentials  that 
seemed  to  flow  endlessly  from  the  pockets  of  the 
Baron,  passed  the  Palais  guard — a  hundred  silent 
men  squatting  behind  a  hastily  erected  barricade 
of  sandbags. 

Within  he  stumbled  upon  von  Stinnes.  The 
Baron  drew  him  into  a  large  empty  chamber. 

' '  We  must  be  careful, ' '  he  whispered.  His  voice 
buzzed  with  an  elation.  "Already  two  minis- 
tries have  fallen.  There  is  talk  now  of  Levine. 
He's  of  the  extreme  left.  I  thought  you  would 
like  to  see  it.  It  has  its  amusing  side."  He 
laughed  softly.  "I  was  with  the  men  in  the 
streets  for  a  while.  There  was  something  there, 
Dorn.  Life,  yes  .  .  .  yes  ...  It  was  amaz- 
ing. But  here  it  is  different.  What  is  it  the 
correspondents  say?  'All  is  confusion,  there  is 
nothing  to  report.'  .  .  .  Yes,  confusion.  There 
are  at  present  three  poets,  one  lunatic,  an  epilep- 
tic, four  workingmen  and  a  scientist  from  Vienna, 
and  two  school  teachers.  They  are  the  Council 

339 


340  Erik  Dorn 

of  Ten.  Look,  there  is  Muhsam,  the  one  with  the 
red  vandyke.  A  poet.  He  used  to  recite  rhymes 
in  the  Caf6  Stephanie." 

The  red  vandyke  peered  into  the  room. 
"Stinnes,  you  are  wanted,"  he  called.  "I  have 
my  portfolio.  I  am  the  new  minister  to  Russia. 
I  leave  for  Moscow  to-morrow." 

"Congratulations!"  the  Baron  answered. 

A  tall,  contemplative  man  with  a  scraggly  gray 
beard — an  angular  Christ-like  figure — appeared. 
He  spoke.  "What  are  you  doing  here,  Muhsam? 
There  is  work  inside." 

"And  you!"  angrily. 

"I  must  think.  We  must  grow  calm."  He 
passed  on,  thinking. 

"Landerdauer,"  smiled  the  Baron,  "the  Whit- 
man translator." 

"Yes,"  the  vandyke  answered,  "we  have  ap- 
pointed him  minister  of  education.  What  news 
from  the  station,  Stinnes?" 

"It  is  taken." 

Dorn  followed  the  Baron  about  the  corridors, 
his  ears  bewildered  by  the  screechings  from  unex- 
pected chambers  of  debate.  He  listened,  amused, 
to  the  volatile  von  Stinnes. 

"They  are  trying  for  a  coalition.  Nikish  is  at 
the  top.  A  former  schoolmaster.  The  commun- 
ists under  Levine  won't  come  in.  The  working- 
men  are  out  overthrowing  the  world,  and  the  great 
thinkers  sit  in  conference  hitting  one  another  over 
the  head  with  slapsticks.  Life,  Dorn,  is  a  droll  busi- 


Adventure  341 

ness,  and  revolution  a  charming  comedy,  nicht 
wahr?  But  it  will  grow  serious  soon.  Munich 
will  be  cut  off.  Food  will  vanish.  Aha !  wait  a 
minute.  ..." 

He  darted  after  a  swaggering  figure.  Dorn 
watched.  The  baron  appeared  to  be  commanding 
and  entreating.  The  figure  finally,  with  a  surly 
shake  of  his  head,  hurried  off.  The  Baron  returned. 

''That  was  Levine,"  he  said.  "He  won't  come 
in  unless  Egelhofer  is  ratified  as  war  minister. 
Egelhofer  is  a  communist.  Wait  a  minute.  I 
will  tell  them  to  make  Egelhofer  minister.  I  will 
make  a  speech.  We  must  have  the  Egelhofer." 

He  vanished  again.  Dorn,  standing  against  a 
window,  watched  frantic  men  scurry  down  the 
corridor  bellowing  commands  at  one  another.  .  .  . 

"Yesterday  they  were  garrulous  little  fools 
buzzing  around  cafe  tables,"  he  thought.  "To- 
night they  boom.  Rodinesque.  And  yet  comic. 
Yes,  comedians.  But  no  more  than  the  troupe  of 
white-collared  comedians  in  Wilhelmstrasse  or 
Washington.  The  workers  were  different.  There 
was  some  thing  in  the  streets.  Men  in  flame.  But 
here  are  little  matches." 

He  caught  sight  of  Matnilde  and  called  her 
name.  She  came  and  stood  beside  him.  Her 
body  was  trembling. 

"Did  you  spend  the  money?"  he  asked  softly. 

"Yes,  but  they  will  buy  the  garrisons  back 
again.  They  have  more  funds  than  we.  Oh,  we 
need  more." 


342  Erik  Dorn 

4 'Who  will  buy  them  back?" 

1 '  The  bourgeoise.  They  have  more  money  than 
we.  And  without  the  garrisons  we  are  lost." 

She  wrung  her  hands.  Dorn  struggled  to 
become  properly  serious. 

11  There,  it  may  come  out  very  fine,"  he  mur- 
mured. " Anyway,  von  Stinnes  is  making  a 
speech.  It  should  help." 

"Stinnes.  ..." 

"Yes,  trying  to  bring  Egelhofer  in  as  war  minis- 
ter. He  talked  with  Levine.  .  .  . " 

"I  don't  understand,"  she  answered.  "He  is 
doing  something  I  don't  understand,  because  he 
is  a  traitor." 

She  became  silent  and  moved  closer  to  Dorn. 

"Oh,  Erik,"  she  sighed,  "I  must  cry.  I  am 
tired." 

He  embraced  her  as  she  began  to  weep.  Von 
Stinnes  emerged,  red-faced  and  elated. 

"It  is  settled,"  he  announced.  "Hello!  what's 
wrong  with  Matty?" 

"Tired,"  Dorn  answered. 

"We  will  go  to  the  hotel." 

They  started  down  the  corridor.  A  group  of 
soldiers  emerged  from  a  chamber,  blocking  their 
way. 

"Baron  von  Stinnes,"  one  of  them  called.  The 
Baron  saluted. 

"You  are  under  arrest  by  order  of  the  Council 
of  Ten." 

Von  Stinnes  bowed. 


Adventure  343 

4 'Go  to  the  hotel  with  Matty,  Dora.  I  will  be 
on  soon." 

To  the  soldiers  he  added,  "Very  well,  comrades. 
Take  me  to  comrade  Levine." 

1  'We  have  orders.   .    .    ." 

"  To  Levine,  I  tell  you,"  he  interrupted  angrily. 
"Are  you  fools?" 

He  removed  a  document  quickly  from  his 
coat  pocket  and  thrust  it  under  the  soldiers' 
eyes. 

"From  Lenine,"  he  whispered  fiercely.  "Now 
where  is  Levine?" 

The  soldiers  led  the  way  toward  the  interior  of 
the  Palais. 

Outside,  Dorn  supported  the  drooping  figure  of 
the  girl.  Runners  passed  them  crying  out,  "It  is 
over !  We  have  taken  the  station ! " 

They  arrived  at  the  hotel.  The  lobby  was 
thronged  with  people.  A  chocolate  salesman  from 
Switzerland  was  orating:  "They  have  erected  a 
guillotine  in  Marien  Platz.  They  are  shooting 
down  and  beheading  everybody  who  wears  a  white 
collar." 

The  hotel  proprietor  quieted  the  crowd. 

4 '  Nonsense ! "  he  cried.  ' '  Ridiculous  nonsense ! 
We  are  safe.  They  are  all  good  Bavarians  and 
will  hurt  nobody." 

Dorn  led  Mathilde  to  his  room.  She  threw 
herself  on  the  bed. 

"So  tired!"  she  whispered. 


344  Erik  Dorn 

"  But  happy,"  he  added.  "Your  beloved  masses 
have  triumphed.*' 

"Don't.     I'm  sick  of  talking.   ..." 

"Too  much  excitement,"  he  smiled. 

They  became  silent.  Dorn,  watching  her  care- 
lessly in  the  dimly  lighted  room,  began  to  think. 
.  .  .  "Disillusionment  already.  The  dream 
has  died  in  her.  A  child's  brain  overstuffed  with 
slogans,  it  begins  now  to  ache  and  grow  confused. 
Tyranny,  injustice,  seem  far  away  and  vague.  The 
revolution  in  the  streets  has  blown  the  revolution 
out  of  her  heart.  There  will  be  many  like  that  to- 
morrow. The  over-idealized  idealists  will  empty 
first.  The  revolution  was  a  dream.  The  reality 
of  it  will  eat  up  the  dream.  Justice  to  the  dreamer 
is  a  vision  of  new  stars.  To  the  workingman — 
another  loaf  of  bread." 

"Of  what  are  you  thinking,  Erik?" 

"Of  nothing  .  .  .  and  its  many  variants,"  he 
answered. 

"We've  won,"  she  sighed.     "Oh,  what  a  day!" 

He  noted  the  listlessness  in  her  voice. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "another  sham  has  had  heroic 
birth.  Out  of  workingmen  with  gwns  there  will 
rise  some  day  a  new  society  which  will  be  different 
than  the  old,  only  as  to-morrow  is  different  than 
to-day.  The  rivers,  Mathilde,  flow  to  the  sea  and 
life  flows  to  death.  And  there  is  nothing  else  of 
consequence  for  intelligence  to  record." 

"You  talk  like  a  German  of  the  last  century," 
she  smiled.  ' '  Oh,  you're  a  strange  man ! " 


Adventure  345 

This  pleased  him.  He  thought  of  words,  a 
ramble  of  words — but  a  knock  at  the  door.  Von 
Stinnes  entered.  He  was  carrying  a  basket. 

"Food/'  he  announced  cheerfully.  "With  food 
in  our  stomachs  the  world  will  seem  more  coherent 
for  a  while." 

He  busied  himself  arranging  plates  of  sand- 
wiches on  a  small  table. 

"Mathilde  asleep?" 

He  walked  to  the  bed  and  leaned  over  her.  The 
girl's  eyes  were  closed. 

"Poor  child,  poor  child!"  the  Baron  whispered. 
He  caressed  her  head  gently.  "We  will  not  wake 
her  up.  But  eat  and  leave  her  food.  Do  you 
mind  if  we  go  out  for  a  while?  It  is  still  early  and 
it  will  be  hard  to  sleep  to-night.  I  know  a  cafe 
where  we  can  sit  quietly  and  drink  wine,  perhaps 
with  cookies." 

Their  eating  finished,  Dorn  accompanied  his 
friend  into  the  street. 

"  It  seems  as  if  nothing  had  happened,"  he  said, 
as  they  walked  through  the  spring  night.  "People 
are  asleep  as  usual,  and  there  is  an  odor  of  summer 
in  the  dark." 

Von  Stinnes  silently  directed  their  way.  After 
a  half -hour's  walk  he  paused  in  front  of  an  ancient- 
looking  building. 

"We  are  in  Schwabbing  now,"  he  said,  "the 
rendezvous  of  the  Welt  Anschauers.  I  think  this 
place  is  still  open." 

He  led  the  way  through  a  narrow  court  and  en- 


346  Erik  Dorn 

tered  a  large,  dimly-lighted  room.  Blank  white 
walls  stared  at  them.  Von  Stinnes  picked  out  a 
table  in  a  corner  and  orderd  two  flasks  of  wine 
from  a  stout  woman  with  a  large  wooden  ring  of 
keys  at  her  black  waist. 

They  drank  in  silence.  Dorn  observed  an 
unusual  air  about  his  friend.  He  thought  of 
Mathilde's  suspicions,  and  smiled.  Yet  there  was 
something  inexplicable  about  von  Stinnes.  There 
had  been  from  the  first. 

"Inexplicable  because  he  is  ...  nothing," 
Dorn  thought.  "A  chevalier  of  excitements,  a 
Don  Quixote  of  disillusion.  .  .  ." 

"You  are  thinking  of  me,"  the  baron  smiled 
over  his  wine-glass,  "as  I  am  thinking  of  you. 
Here's  to  our  unimportant  healths,  Erik." 

Dorn  swallowed  more  wine.  To  be  called 
Erik  by  his  friend  pleased  him.  He  looked  in- 
quiringly at  the  humorous  eyes  of  the  man,  and 
spoke : 

"You  are  cut  after  my  pattern." 

The  Baron  nodded. 

"  Only  I  have  had  more  opportunities  to  exercise 
the  pattern,"  he  replied.  "For  the  pattern,  dear 
friend,  is  scoundrelism.  And  I,  God  bless 
me  .  .  ."  He  paused  and  gestured  as  if  in  a 
hopelessness  of  words. 

"There  is  quality  as  well  as  quantity  in  scoun- 
drelism," Dorn  suggested.  He  was  thinking 
without  emotion  of  Anna. 

"I  have  decided  to  remain  in  Munich,"  von 


Adventure  347 

Stinnes  spoke,  "and  that  means  that  I  will  die 
here." 

"The  day's  melodrama  has  gone  to  your  head," 
Dora  laughed. 

"No.  There  are  people  in  Munich  who  know 
me  quite  well — too  well.  And  among  their  virtues 
they  number  a  desire  for  my  death.  In  Berlin 
it  is  otherwise.  Then  too,  this  business  of  to-day 
can't  last.  It  is  already  topheavy  with  think- 
ers, and  will  eventually  evaporate  in  a  dozen 
executions.  It  may  come  back,  though.  I 
cannot  forget  the  workingmen  who  stormed  the 
Banhoff." 

He  paused  and  drank;. 

"Yes,  I  have  decided  to  stay  and  play  awhile. 
There  will  be  a  few  weeks  more.  One  will  find 
extravagant  diversions  in  Munich  during  the  next 
few  weeks.  I  am  already  Egelhofer's  right-hand 
man.  I  will  organize  the  Soviet  army,  assist  in 
the  conduct  of  the  government,  try  to  buy  coal 
from  Rathenau  in  Berlin,  make  speeches,  compose 
earth-shaking  proclamations,  and  end  up  smoking 
a  cigarette  in  front  of  a  Noske  firing-squad.  .  .  . 
Do  not  interrupt.  I  feel  it  is  a  program  I  owe  to 
humanity.  And  in  addition,  I  am  growing  weary 
of  myself." 

Dorn  shook  his  head. 

"Romantics,  friend.  I  do  not  argue  against 
them." 

"I  wonder,"  von  Stinnes  continued,  "if  you 
realize  I  am  a  scoundrel.  I  have  thought  at  times 


Erik  Dorn 


that  you  did,  because  of  the  way  you  smile  when  I 
talk." 

"Scoundrels  are  creatures  I  do  not  like.  And 
I  like  you.  Ergo,  you  are  not  a  scoundrel,  von 
Stinnes." 

The  Baron  laughed. 

"A  convenient  philosophy,  Erik.  Well,  I  was 
in  the  German  intelligence  and  worked  in  Paris 
during  the  second  year  of  the  war.  Prepare  your- 
self for  a  confession.  My  secrets  bore  me.  And 
a  little  cocotte  of  a  countess  betrayed  me.  It  is 
a  virtue  French  women  have.  They  are  not  to  be 
trusted,  and  love  to  them  is  something  which  may 
be  improved  by  the  execution  of  a  lover.  But 
there  was  no  execution.  To  save  my  skin  I  entered 
the  French  intelligence  —  without,  of  course,  re- 
signing from  the  German.  Thus  I  was  of  excellent 
service  to  the  largest  number.  To  the  French  I 
was  invaluable.  German  positions,  plans,  ma- 
neuvers, at  my  finger  tips.  .  .  .  And  to  the 
Germans,  unaware  of  my  new  and  lucrative 
connection,  I  was  also  invaluable.  Again  po- 
sitions, plans,  maneuvers.  I  was  transferred  to 
Italy  by  the  French  and  .  .  .  But  it's  a 
complicated  narrative.  I  haven't  it  straight  in 
my  own  mind  yet.  Do  you  know,  I  wake  up 
at  night  sometimes  with  the  rather  naive  idea 
that  I,  von  Stinnes,  who  prefer  Turkish  cigarettes 
to  women,  even  brunettes  .  .  .  But  I  stammer. 
It  is  difficult  to  be  amusing,  always.  I  think 
sometimes  at  night  that  I  was  personally  re- 


Adventure  349 

sponsible  for  at  least  half  the  casualties  of  the 
war." 

"Megalomania,"  said  Dorn  without  changing 
his  smile. 

"Yes,  obviously.  You  hit  it.  A  distorted  con- 
science image.  Ah,  the  bombardments  I  have 
perfected.  The  hills  of  men  I  have  blown  up. 
Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians.  Yes,  a  word  from 
me  ...  I  pointed  the  cannon  straighten  .  .  . 
But  disregarding  the  boast  .  .  .  you  will  admit 
my  superiority  as  a  scoundrel." 

"It  is  immaterial,"  Dorn  answered.  "If  you 
betrayed  the  French,  you  made  amends  by  be- 
traying the  Germans,  and  vice  versa.  As  for  the 
Italians  ...  I  have  never  been  in  Italy." 

Von  Stinnes  laughed. 

"You  do  not  believe  me,  eh?" 

"You  are  lying  only  in  what  you  do  not  say," 
Dorn  laughed. 

"Yes,  exactly.     I  will  go  on,  if  it  amuses  you." 

"It  is  better  conversation  than  ususal." 

"I  am  now  with  the  English,"  von  Stinnes  con- 
tinued. "They  play  a  curious  game  outside 
Versailles,  the  English.  They  have  entrusted  me 
with  a  most  delicate  mission."  He  paused  and 
drained  his  glass.  "It  is  quite  dramatic.  I  tell 
it  to  you  because  I  am  drunk  and  weary  of  secrets. 
Five  years  of  secrets  .  .  .  until  I  am  almost 
timorous  of  thinking  even  to  myself  .  .  .  for 
fear  I  will  betray  something  to  myself.  But — it 
is  droll.  The  million  marks  you  so  gallantly 


350  Erik  Dorn 

carried  in  for  Matty,  they  were  mine,  Erik."  He 
laughed.  "I  gave  them  to  Dr.  Kasnilov,  and  a 
very  mysterious  Englishman  gave  them  to 
me.  .  .  ." 

"Gifts  of  a  million  are  somewhat  phenomenal," 
Dorn  murmured. 

"  I  stole  only  a  hundred  thousand,'*  von  Stinnes 
went  on,  "which,  of  course,  everyone  expected." 

"But  why  the  English,  Karl?" 

"A  little  plan  to  separate  Bavaria  from  Prussia, 
and  help  break  up  Middle  Europe.  You  know 
feeling  between  the  two  provinces  is  intense. 
There  was  almost  a  mutiny  in  the  second  war  year. 
And  anything  to  help  it  along.  To-morrow, 
Franz  Lipp  the  new  foreign  minister  of  the  Soviets 
will  telegraph  to  Berlin  recalling  the  Bavarian 
ambassador;  there  is  one,  you  know — a  figure- 
head. And  the  good  Franz  will  announce  to  the 
world  that  Bavaria  has  declared  its  independence 
of  Prussia.  This  will  be  a  politic  move  for  the 
Soviets  as  well  as  England.  For  the  bourgeoisie  in 
Bavaria  dislike  Prussia  as  much  as  the  commun- 
ists dislike  her.  But  I  bore  you  with  intrigue. 
We  have  had  our  little  revolution  for  which  you 
must  allow  me  to  accept  an  honest  share  of  credit. 
.  .  .  Let  us  have  another  flask." 

"An  interesting  story,"  Dorn  agreed. 

"You  still  smile,  Erik?" 

'  *  More  than  ever. ' ' 

"Ah,  then  truly,  we  are  of  the  same  pattern." 

Von  Stdnnes  stared  at  him  sadly. 


Adventure  35 J 

"You  are  my  first  companion  in  five  years,"  he 
added. 

"As  you  are  mine,"  Dorn  answered.  "Here 
...  to  the  success  of  all  your  villainies  and  our 
friendship." 

"Which  is  not  one  of  them,"  the  Baron  mur- 
mured. ' '  You  believe  me  ? ' ' 

"Of  course." 

"Ah!  it  is  almost  a  sensation  to  be  believed 
.  .  .  for  speaking  the  truth.  I  feel  as  if  I  have 
committed  some  exotic  sin.  Yes,  confession  is 
good  for  the  soul." 

"Shall  we  go  back  to  the  hotel?" 

The  Baron  leaned  forward  and  grasped  Dorn's 
hand  feverishly. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  joke  any  more,"  he  whispered. 
"I  have  told  you  the  truth.  And  you  still  smile 
at  me.  You  are  a  curious  man.  I  have  for  long 
sat  like  an  exile  surrounded  by  my  villainies  and 
smiling  alone  at  the  world.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  live  alone,  to  become  someone  whom  nobody 
knows,  whom  trusting  people  mistake  for  someone 
else.  I  have  wanted  to  be  known  as  I  am  .  .  . 
but  have  been  afraid.  Ah !  I  am  very  drunk  .  .  . 
for  you  seem  still  amused." 

Dorn  squeezed  his  hand. 

"Yes,  you  are  my  first  friend,"  he  said.  The 
Baron  followed  him  to  his  feet.  They  were  silent 
on  the  way  to  the  hotel.  Von  Stinnes  walked 
with  his  arm  linked  in  Dorn's.  Before  the  latter's 
room  he  halted. 


352  Erik  Dorn 

"Good  night,  sweet  prince,"  he  mumbled 
drowsily,  "and  may  angels  guard  thy  sleep." 

Alone,  he  moved  unsteadily  down  the  hall. 

Mathilde  was  gone.  Moving  about  the  room, 
Dorn  found  a  note  left  for  him.  He  read : 

* '  A  man  was  here  asking  for  you.  An  American 
officer.  I  met  him  in  the  lobby  and  mentioned 
there  was  an  American  here  and  he  asked  your 
name.  When  I  told  him  he  seemed  to  be  excited. 
He  said  his  name  is  Captain  Hazlitt  and  he  is  in 
the  courier  service  on  his  way  from  Paris  to  Vienna. 
I  do  not  like  him.  Please  be  careful. 

"MATHILDE  DOHMANN." 


CHAPTER  IX 

IN  the  days  that  followed  Dorn  sought  to  interest 
himself  in  the  details  of  the  situation.  The 
thing  buzzed  and  gyrated  about  him,  tiring  his 
thought  with  its  innumerable  surfaces.  Revolu- 
tion. A  new  state.  New  flags  and  new  slogans. 

"I  can't  admire  it,"  he  explained  to  Mathilde 
at  the  end  of  the  first  week,  "because  its  grotes- 
queries  makes  me  laugh.  And  I  cannot  laugh  at 
it  because  its  intensity  saddens  me.  To  observe 
the  business  sanely  is  to  come  to  as  many  conclu- 
sions as  there  are  words." 

Mathilde  had  recovered  some  of  her  enthusiasm. 
But  the  mania  that  had  illuminated  her  thought 
was  gone.  She  spoke  and  worked  eagerly  through 
the  days,  moving  from  department  to  department, 
helping  to  establish  some  of  the  innumerable 
stenographic  archives  the  endless  stream  of  soviet 
pronouncements  and  orders  were  beginning  to 
require.  But  at  night  her  listlessness  returned. 

"There  is  doubt  in  you  too,"  Dorn  smiled  at  her. 
"I  am  sorry  for  that.  It  has  been  the  same  with 
so  many  others.  They  have,  alas !  become  reason- 
able. And  to  become  reasonable  .  .  .  Well, 
revolution  does  not  thrive  on  reason.  It  needs 
something  more  active.  You,  Mathilde,  were  a 

353 


354  Erik  Dorn 

revolutionist  in  Berlin.  Now  you  are  a  stenog- 
rapher. Alas !  one  collapses  under  a  load  of  dream 
and  finds  one's  self  in  an  uninteresting  Utopia, 
if  that  means  anything.  Epigrams  lie  around  the 
street  corners  of  Munich  waiting  new  text-books." 

They  were  walking  idly  toward  the  cafe  von 
Stinnes  had  appointed  as  a  rendezvous.  It  was 
late  and  the  dark  streets  were  deserted.  The 
shops  had  been  closed  all  week.  The  Revolution 
was  struggling  in  poorly  ventilated  council-rooms 
with  problems  of  economics.  Beyond  the  per- 
sistent rumors  that  the  city,  cut  off  from  the  fields, 
would  starve  in  another  two  days  and  that  the 
legendary  armies  of  Hoffmann  were  within  a 
stone's  throw  of  the  Hofbrau  House,  there  was 
little  excitement.  "My  employers,"  von  Stinnes 
had  explained  on  the  fourth  day,  "are  waiting  to 
see  if  the  Soviet  can  stand  against  the  Noske  armies 
from  Prussia.  The  armies  will  arrive  in  a  few 
weeks.  If  the  Soviet  can  defeat  them  and  thus 
establish  its  authentic  independence,  my  employers 
in  Versailles  will  then  finance  the  Bavarian  bour- 
geoisie and  assist  in  the  overthrow  of  the  Commun- 
ists. On  the  one  condition,  of  course,  that  the 
bourgeoisie  maintain  Bavaria  as  an  independent 
nation.  And  this  the  bourgeoisie. are  not  at  all 
averse  to  doing.  It  sounds  preposterous,  doesn't 
it?  You  smile.  But  all  intrigue  is  preposterous, 
even  when  most  successful." 

"I  quite  believe,"  Dorn  had  answered.  "I've 
long  been  convinced  that  intrigue  is  nothing  more 


Adventure  355 

than  the  fantastic  imbecilities  unimaginative  men 
palm  off  on  one  another  for  cleverness." 

Now,  walking  with  Mathilde,  Dorn  felt  an  in- 
clination to  rid  himself  of  the  week's  political  pre- 
occupation. Mathilde  was  beginning  to  have  a 
sentimental  influence  upon  him. 

11  Perhaps  if  she  loved  me  something  would  come 
back,"  he  thought.  "Anyway  it  would  be  nice 
to  feel  a  woman  in  love  with  me  again." 

An  innocuous  sadness  sat  comfortably  in  his 
heart.  Later  he  would  embrace  her.  Kiss  .  .  . 
watch  her  undress.  Things  that  would  mean 
nothing.  .  .  .  But  they  might  help  waste  time, 
and  perhaps  give  him  another  glimpse  of  ... 
He  paused  in  his  thought  and  felt  a  dizziness  enter 
his  silence.  Words  spun.  "The  face  of  stars," 
he  murmured  under  his  breath,  and  laughed  as 
Mathilde  looked  inquiringly  up  at  him. 

The  cafe  was  deserted.  Von  Stinnes,  alone  in 
a  booth,  called  "Hello"  to  them  as  they  entered. 

"We  have  the  place  almost  to  ourselves,"  he 
said.  ' '  There  are  some  people  in  the  other  room. ' ' 

He  looked  affectionately  at  the  two  as  they  sat 
down,  and  added,  "How  goes  the  courtship?" 

"Gravely  and  with  cautious  cynicism,"  Dorn 
answered.  "We  find  it  difficult  to  overcome  our 
sanities." 

He  smiled  at  the  girl  and  covered  her  hand  with 
his.  Her  eyes  regarded  him  luminously.  They 
sat  eating  their  late  meal,  von  Stinnes  chatting 
of  the  latest  developments.  ...  A  mob  of 


356  Erik  Dorn 

communist  workingmen  had  attacked  the  poet 
Muhsam  while  he  was  unburdening  himself  of 
proletarian  oratory  in  the  Schiller  Square. 

"They  chased  him  for  two  blocks  into  the 
Palais,"  the  Baron  smiled,  "and  he  lost  his  hat. 
And  perhaps  his  portfolio.  They  are  beginning 
to  distrust  the  poets.  They  want  something  be- 
sides revolutionary  Iambics  now.  Muhsam,  how- 
ever, is  content.  He  received  a  postal  card  this 
afternoon  with  a  skull  and  cross-bones  drawn  on 
it  informing  him  he  would  be  assassinated  Friday 
at  3  P.M.  I';  was  signed  by  'The  Society  for  the 
Abolition  of  Monstrosities.'  He  is  having  it  done 
into  an  expressionist  placard  and  it  will  un- 
doubtedly restore  his  standing  with  the  Council 
of  Ten.  Franz  Lipp,  the  foreign  minister,  you 
know,  has  ordered  all  the  telephones  taken  out 
of  the  foreign  office  building.  It's  an  old  failing 
of  his — a  phobia  against  telephones.  They  send 
him  into  fits  when  they  ring.  He  has  incidentally 
offered  to  sign  a  separate  peace  with  the  En- 
tente. A  crafty  move,  but  premature.  And 
the  burghers  have  been  ordered  under  pain  of 
death  to  surrender  all  firearms  within  twenty-four 
hours." 

The  talk  ran  on.  Mathilde,  feigning  sleep, 
placed  her  head  on  Dorn's  shoulder. 

"You  play  with  the  little  one,"  whispered  von 
Stinnes.  ' '  She  is  in  love. ' ' 

Dorn  placed  his  arm  around  her  and  smiled  at 
her  half-opened  eyes. 


Adventure  357 

A  man,  walking  unsteadily  across  the  empty 
cafe,  stopped  in  front  of  the  booth. 

"  I've  been  looking  for  you,"  he  said.  "You 
don't  remember  me,  eh?" 

Dorn  looked  up.  An  American  uniform.  An 
excited  face. 

"  My  name's  Hazlitt.     Come  out  here." 

Von  Stinnes  leveled  his  monocle  witheringly 
upon  the  interloper  and  murmured  an  aside, 
"He'sdrtLik.  ..." 

Dorn  stood  up. 

"Yes,  I  remember  you  now,"  he  said.  The 
man's  tone  had  oppressed  him.  "What  do  you 
want?" 

He  detached  himself  from  Mathilde  and  stepped 
into  the  room.  Hazlitt  stared  at  him. 

"I  owe  you  something,"  he  spoke  slowly. 
"Come  out  here." 

Watching  the  man  as  he  approached,  Dorn  be- 
came aware  of  a  rage  in  himself.  His  muscles 
had  tightened  and  a  nervousness  was  shak- 
ing in  his  words.  The  man  was  a  stranger, 
yet  there  was  an  uncomfortable  intimacy  in  his 
eyes. 

Hazlitt  stood  breathing  heavily.  This  was  Erik 
Dorn — the  man  who  had  had  Rachel.  Wine  swept 
a  flame  through  his  thought.  God !  this  was  the 
man.  She  was  gone,  but  this  was  the  man.  Shoot 
him  down  like  a  dog !  Shoot  him  down !  Kill  the 
grin  of  him.  He'd  pay.  He'd  killed  something. 
Shoot  him  down!  There  was  a  gun  under  his 


358  Erik  Dorn 

coat — army  revolver.  Better  than  shooting 
Germans.  This  was  the  man. 

"You're  going  to  pay  for  it,"  he  spoke.  "Go 
on,  say  something." 

Dorn's  rage  hesitated.  A  mistake.  What  the 
devil  was  up? 

"Oh,  you've  forgotten  her,"  Hazlitt  whispered. 
Shoot  him!  Voices  inside  demanded  wildly  that 
he  shoot.  Not  talk,  but  kill. 

"Rachel,"  he  cried  suddenly.  His  eyes  stopped 
seeing. 

Dorn  jumped  for  the  gun  thai;  had  appeared 
and  caught  his  arm  in  time .  Rachel — -then  this  was 
something  about  Rachel?  Hazlitt  .  .  .  Rachel. 
What?  A  fight  over  Rachel?  Rachel  gone,  dead 
for  always.  Get  the  gun  away,  though.  .  .  . 

They  were  stumbling  across  the  room,  twisting 
and  locked  together.  He  saw  von  Stinnes  rise, 
stand  undecided.  Mathilde's  face,  like  some- 
thing shooting  by  outside  a  car  window.  And  a 
strong  man  trying  to  kill  him  .  .  .for  Rachel. 
A  Galahad  for  Rachel. 

His  thought  faded  into  a  rage.  A  curse  as  the 
man  grabbed  at  his  throat.  The  gun  was  still  in 
the  air.  His  wrist  was  beginning  to  ache  from 
struggling  with  the  thing.  This  was  part  of  the 
idiocy  of  things.  But  he  must  look  out.  Perhaps 
only  a  moment  more  to  live.  The  man  was  weep- 
ing. Mumbling  .  .  .  "you  made  a  fool  out  of 
her  ...  You  dirty.  ..." 

As  they  continued  their  stumbling  and  clutch- 


Adventure  359 

ing,  a  fury  entered  Dorn.  He  became  aware  of 
eyes  blazing  against  him — drunken,  furious  eyes 
that  were  weeping.  With  a  violent  lunge  he 
twisted  the  gun  out  of  the  man's  hand.  There 
was  an  instant  of  silence  and  the  man  came  hurling 
against  him. 

Dorn  fired.  Down  .  .  .  /'my  head  .  .  ." 
He  lay  still.  The  body  of  Hazlitt  sprawled  over 
him.  For  a  moment  the  two  men  remained  em- 
braced on  the  floor.  Then  the  body  of  Hazlitt 
rolled  slowly  from  on  top.  It  fell  on  its  back — a 
dead  face  covered  with  blood  staring  emptily  at 
the  ceiling. 

Dorn,  with  the  edge  of  an  iron  table  foot  em- 
bedded in  his  head,  lay  breathing  unevenly,  his 
eyes  closed. 


CHAPTER  X 

HPHE  blinds  were  drawn.  Cheering  drifted  in 
•*  through  the  open  window.  Mathilde  sat  in 
a  chair.  She  was  watching  him. 

"Hello!"  he  murmured.     "What's  up?" 

"Erik  .    .    ." 

She  fell  to  her  knees  beside  the  bed  and  began 
to  weep.  He  lay  quietly  listening  to  her.  Band- 
ages around  his  head.  A  lunatic  with  a  gun. 
Yes.  Rachel.  The  man  had  been  in  love  with 
Rachel.  Pains  like  noises  in  his  ears. 

"You  mustn't  talk.   ..." 

"  I'm  all  right.     Where's  von  Stinnes  ? ' ' 

"'Shh.   ..." 

He  smiled  feebly.  She  was  holding  his  hand, 
still  weeping.  A  memory  returned  vividly.  A 
man  with  blazing  eyes.  He  had  lost  his  temper. 
But  there  had  been  something  more  than  that. 
Two  imbeciles  fighting  over  a  thing  that  had  died 
for  both  of  them.  Clowns  at  each  other's  throat. 
A  background  unfolded  itself.  Against  it  he  lay 
watching  the  two  men.  Here  was  something  like 
a  quaint  old  print  with  a  title,  "  Fate.  .  .  .  " 

"Bumped  my  head,"  he  murmured.  But  an- 
other thought  persisted.  It  moved  through  the 
pain  in  his  skull,  unable  to  straighten  itself  into 

360 


Adventure  361 

lines  of  words.  It  was  something  about  fighting 
for  Rachel.  He  would  ask  questions. 

1 '  What  happened,  Mathilde  ?    Where'd  he  go  ? " 

"You  mean  the  man?  'Shh.  .  .  .  Don't 
talk  now." 

"Come,  don't  be  silly." 

The  thinness  of  his  voice  surprised  him. 

"What  became  of  the  fool?" 

"He's  dead." 

"Dead?" 

"Yes,  you  shot  him.     Now  be  quiet." 

"Good  God,  so  I  did.  I  remember.  When  he 
jumped  at  me." 

A  sinking  feeling  almost  drifted  him  away.  He 
felt  as  if  he  had  become  hungry.  The  man  was 
dead.  ...  "I  killed  him.  Well  .  .  .  what 
of  it?" 

He  opened  his  eyes  and  looked  at  the  room.  It 
was  day — afternoon,  perhaps. 

1 '  The  doctor  says  you'll  be  all  right  in  a  few  days. 
But  you  must  be  quiet.  .  .  .  " 

"Von  Stinnes,"  he  murmured.  " There  11  be 
trouble.  Call  him,  will  you?" 

Mathilde  turned  away.  Now  the  pain  was  less. 
He  could  hear  cheering  outside.  A  demonstration. 
Workingmen  marching  under  new  flags. 

"Von  Stinnes  is  under  arrest,  Erik." 

"What  for?  A  new  government?"  What  a 
crazy  business. 

"No.     Don't  talk,  please.     Later.   ..." 

He  was  too  weak  to  sit  up.    . 


362  Erik  Dorn 

"Things  will  have  to  be  straightened  out,"  he 
muttered.  "The  fool  was  an  American  officer. 
There'll  be  trouble." 

"No,  don't  worry.  Von  Stinnes  has  fixed 
things." 

His  eyes  grew  heavy  and  closed.  Sleep  .  .  . 
and  let  things,  fixed  or  unfixed,  go  to  the  devil. 

When  he  awoke  again  the  room  was  lighted. 
Mathilde,  standing  by  the  window,  turned  as  he 
stirred. 

' '  Are  you  awake  ? ' ' 

"Yes,  and  hungry." 

She  brought  a  tray  to  his  bed.  He  raised  himself 
carefully,  his  head  unbearably  heavy.  Mathilde 
watched  him  with  wide  eyes  as  he  sipped  some 
broth. 

"What  did  they  arrest  the  Baron  for?"  he 
asked. 

She  waited  till  he  had  finished,  and  cleared  the 
bed,  sitting  down  on  the  edge.  Her  face  lowered 
toward  him  till  her  lips  touched  and  kissed  him. 

"For  murder,"  she  whispered.  Another  kiss. 
"Now  you  must  be  quiet  and  I'll  tell  you.  He 
gave  himself  up  when  the  police  came.  We  carried 
you  out  first.  And  then  I  left  him." 

"But,"  Dorn  looked  bewilderedly  into  the  eyes 
of  the  girl. 

"It  was  easier  for  him  than  for  you.  They 
would  take  you  away  for  trial  to  America.  But 
he  will  be  tried  here.  And  he  will  come  out  all 
right.  Don't  worry.  We  thought  your  skull  was 


Adventure  363 

fractured,  but  the  doctor  says  it  was  only  a  hard 
blow." 

She  lowered  her  head  beside  him  on  the  pillow 
and  whispered,  "I  love  you!  Poor  Erik!  He  is 
defenseless — with  a  broken  head." 

"You  are  kind,"  he  answered;  "von  Stinnes, 
too.  But  we  must  set  matters  right.  ..." 

"No,  no,  be  still!" 

He  grew  silent.  It  was  night  again.  In  the 
morning  he  would  be  strong  enough  to  get  up.  A 
misty  calm,  the  pain  almost  gone,  veins  throbbing 
and  a  little  split  in  his  thought  .  .  .  but  no 
more. 

"I  will  sleep  by  you,"  Mathilde  spoke.  She 
stood  up  and  removed  her  waist  and  shoes.  He 
watched  her  with  interest.  Another  woman 
curiously  like  Anna,  like  Rachel — like  the  two 
creatures  in  Paris.  Shoulders  suddenly  bare. 
Possessive,  unashamed  gestures.  .  .  .  She  lay 
down  beside  him  with  a  sigh. 

"Poor  Erik!  I  take  advantage  of  a  broken 
head." 

"No,"  he  smiled. 

They  lay  motionless,  her  head  touching  his 
shoulder  timidly. 

"I  could  live  with  you  forever  and  be  happy," 
she  whispered. 

"We  will  see  about  forever — when  it  comes." 

"  Do  you  like  me — perhaps — now?  " 

He  would  have  preferred  her  silent.  Silence  at 
least  was  an  effortless  lie.  To  make  love  was  pre- 


364  Erik  Dorn 

posterous.  How  many  times  had  he  said,  "  I  love 
you?"  Too  many.  But  she  was  young  and  it 
would  sound  pretty  in  her  ears. 

"Mathilde,  dear  one. " 

Her  arm  trembled  across  his  body. 

It  was  difficult,  but  he  would  say  it.  .  .  . 
"Yes,  in  an  odd  sort  of  way,  Mathilde,  I  love 
you.  ..." 

"Ah!  you  are  only  being  polite — because  I  have 
fed  you  broth." 

"No.    As  much  as  I  can  love  anything.   .    .    ." 

"  Later,  Erik.  'Shh !  Sleep  if  you  can.  Oh,  I 
am  shameless." 

She  had  moved  against  him.  He  thought  with 
a  smile,  "What  an  original  way  of  nursing  a  broken 
head!" 

Later,  tired  with  a  renewed  effort  to  straighten 
out  words  about  the  fool  and  Rachel  and  himself, 
he  closed  his  eys.  Mathilde  was  still  awake. 

"I'll  see  von  Stinnes  in  the  morning,"  he  mur- 
mured drowsily.  "Von  Stinnes  ...  a  gallant 
friend.  ..." 

.  .  .  Someone  knocking  on  the  door  aroused 
him.  Dawn  was  in  the  room. 

"Matty,"  he  called.  She  slept.  He  found 
himself  able  to  rise  and  his  legs  carried  him 
unsteadily  to  the  door.  A  tall  marine,  outside. 

"Herr  Erik  Dorn?" 

Dorn  nodded  dizzily. 

The  man  went  on  in  German.  "I  come  from 
Stinnes.  I  have  a  letter  for  you." 


Adventure  365 

He  took  the  letter  from  his  hand  and  moved 
hurriedly  to  a  chair. 

"Thanks,"  vaguely.  The  marine  saluted  and 
walked  off.  Mathilde  had  awakened. 

"  What  are  you  doing?" 

She  slipped  out  of  bed  and  hurried  to  him. 

"A  letter,"  he  answered.  He  allowed  her  to 
help  him  back  to  his  pillow.  Reclining  again,  his 
dizziness  grew  less. 

"  I'll  read  it  for  you,"  she  said. 

"No.    VonStinnes.   ..." 

"It  may  be  important." 

"I'll  be  able  to  read  in  a  moment." 

She  shook  her  head  and  slipped  the  envelope 
from  his  weakening  fingers. 

"I  know  about  von  Stinnes.  Don't  be  afraid. 
May  I?" 

He  nodded  and  she  began  to  read : 

"DEAR  ERIK  DORN: 

"  I  write  this  at  night,  and  to-morrow  I  will  be 
ended.  You  must  not  misunderstand  what  I  do. 
It  is  a  business  long  delayed.  But  I  have  made  a 
full  confesssion  in  writing  for  the  Entente  com- 
mission— ten  closely  written  pages.  A  master- 
piece, if  I  have  to  boast  myself.  And  in  order  to 
avoid  the  anti-climax  which  your  sense  of  honor 
would  undoubtedly  precipitate,  I  will  put  a  period 
to  it  in  an  hour.  A  trigger  pulled,  and  the  nobility 
of  my  sad  country  loses  another  of  its  shining  lights. 
I  am  overawed  by  the  quaint  justice  of  life.  I  end 


366  Erik  Dorn 

a  career  of  villainy  with  a  final  lie.  It  would 
really  be  impossible  for  me  to  die  telling  a  truth. 
The  devil  himself  would  appear  and  protest.  But 
with  a  lie  on  my  lips,  it  is  easy.  Indeed,  somehow, 
natural.  But  I  pose — a  male  Magdalene  in  tears. 
Do  not  misunderstand — too  much.  You  are  my 
friend,  and  I  would  like  to  live  a  while  longer  that 
we  might  amuse  ourselves  together.  You  have 
been  an  education.  I  find  myself  even  now  on 
this  auspicious  midnight  writing  with  your  words. 
But  I  mistrust  you,  friend.  You  would  deny  me 
this  delicate  martyrdom  if  I  lived.  For  you  are 
at  bottom  lamentably  honorable.  So  now,  as  you 
read  this,  I  am  dead  (a  sentence  out  of  Marie 
Corelli)  and  the  situation  is  beyond  adjustment. 
Please  accept  my  service  as  gracefully  as  it  is 
rendered.  The  confession,  as  I  said,  is  a  master- 
piece. It  would  please  my  vanity  if  sometime 
you  could  read  it.  For  in  this,  my  last  lie,  I  have 
extended  myself.  Dear  friend,  there  is  a  certain 
awe  which  I  cannot  overcome — for  the  drama,  or 
comedy,  finishes  too  perfectly.  You  once  called 
me  a  Don  Quixote  of  disillusion.  And  now,  per- 
haps, I  will  inspire  a  few  new  phrases.  Let  them 
be  poignant,  but  above  all  graceful.  I  would  have 
for  my  epitaph  your  smile  and  the  whimsical  irony 
of  your  comment.  Better  this  than  the  hand- 
rubbing  grunt  of  the  firing-squad  returning  to 
barracks  after  its  labors.  Alas !  that  I  will  not  be 
near  you  to  hear  it.  But  perhaps  there  will  come  to 
me  as  I  submit  myself  to  the  opening  tortures  of 


Adventure  367 

hell,  an  echo  of  your  words.  And  this  will  bring 
me  a  smile  with  which  to  cheat  the  devil.  I  be- 
queathe  to  you  my  silver  cigarette-case.  You  are 
my  brother  and  I  say  good-bye  to  you. 

"KARL  VON  STINNES." 

"No  postscript?"  Dorn  asked  softly. 

Mathilde  shook  her  head.     There  was  silence. 

"Will  you  find  out  about  him,  please?"  he 
whispered. 

The  girl  dressed  herself  quickly  and  left  the 
room  without  speaking.  Alone,  Dorn  lay  with  the 
letter  in  his  hand. 

He  spoke  aloud  after  minutes,  as  if  addressing 
someone  invisible. 

"I  have  no  phrases,  dear  friend.  Let  my  tears 
be  an  epigram." 


PART  V 

SILENCE 


369 


CHAPTER  I 

HPHE  sea  swarmed  under  the  night.  A  moon 
•I  road  floated  on  the  long  dark  swells.  From 
the  deck  of  the  throbbing  ship  Dorn  looked  steadily 
toward  the  circle  of  moving  water.  In  the  salon, 
the  ship's  orchestra  was  playing.  A  rollicking 
sound  of  music  drifted  away  into  the  dark  mono- 
tone of  the  sea. 

A  romantic  mood.  A  chair  on  an  upper  deck. 
Stars  and  a  moon  road  over  the  sea.  Better  to 
sit  mumbling  to  himself  than  join  in  the  chatter 
of  the  cabin.  The  gayly  lighted  salon  alive  with 
laughter,  music,  and  voices  touched  his  ears — a 
tiny  music-box  tinkling  valiantly  through  the  dark 
sweep  of  endless  yesterdays,  endless  to-morrows 
that  sighed  out  of  the  hidden  water.  The  night 
was  an  old  yesterday,  the  sea  an  old  to-morrow. 

A  sadness  in  his  heart  that  kept  him  from  smil- 
ing, a  strange  comedy  of  words  in  his  thought,  a 
harlequin  with  the  night  sitting  on  his  lap.  There 
were  things  to  remember.  There  were  memories. 
Unnecessary  to  think.  Words  formed  themselves 
into  phrases.  Phrases  made  dim  pictures  as  if 
the  past  was  struggling  fitfully  to  remain  somehow 
alive.  .  .  .  His  good-bye  to  Mathilde.  And 
long,  stupid  weeks  in  Berlin.  The  girl  had  been 


372  Erik  Dorn 

absurd.  Absurd,  an  impulsive  little  shrew.  With 
demands.  Four  months  of  Mathilde.  Unsus- 
pected variants  of  boredom.  Clothed  in  her  unre- 
lenting love  like  an  Indian  in  full  war  dress.  Yet 
to  part  with  her  had  made  him  sad. 

The  sea  rolled  mystically  away  from  his  eyes. 

1 '  An  old  pattern, ' '  his  thought  murmured, '  'hold- 
ing eternities.  And  the  little  music  keeps  tinkling 
downstairs.  A  butterfly  of  sound  in  the  night. 
Like  a  miniature  of  all  living.  Ah,  I'm  growing 
sentimental.  Sitting  holding  hands  with  the  sea. 
She  was  sad  when  I  left  her.  What  of  it?  Von 
Stinnes.  Dear  friend!  No  sadness  there.  He 
was  right.  New  phrases,  graceful  emotions. 
What  an  artist!  But  Warren  couldn't  write  the 
story.  It  has  to  be  played  by  a  hurdy-gurdy  on  a 
guillotine.1' 

He  let  his  words  wander  gropingly  over  the 
water  until  a  silence  entered  him.  Thus  life  wan- 
dered away.  The  sea  beat  time  to  the  passing 
of  ships,  changing  ships.  But  always  the  same 
beat.  It  was  the  constancy  of  the  stars  that  sad- 
dened him.  September  stars.  The  stars  were 
yesterdays.  Yes,  unchanging  spaces,  unchanging 
yesterdays,  and  a  ship's  orchestra  dropping  little 
valses  into  the  dark  sea.  He  opened  a  silver 
cigarette-case — an  heirloom  with  a  crest  on  it. 
Von  Stinnes  again.  Curious  how  he  remembered 
him — a  memory  neither  sad  nor  merry — but  final 
like  the  sea.  A  phantom  of  word  and  incident 
that  bowed  with  an  enchanting  irony  out  of  an 


Silence  373 

April  day.  The  other,  the  fool  with  the  gun.  .  .  . 
Good  God,  he  was  a  murderer!  He  smiled.  Von 
Stinnes,  a  melancholy  Pierrot  doffing  his  hat  with 
a  gallant  snicker  to  the  moon.  Hazlitt,  a  panta- 
loon. Yet  tragic.  Yes,  there  was  something  in 
the  cafe  that  night — two  men  hurling  themselves 
drunkenly  against  the  taunting  emptiness  of  life. 
The  rage  had  come  because  he  had  remembered 
Rachel.  A  sudden  mysterious  remembering.  A 
remembering  that  she  was  gone.  It  had  torn  for 
a  moment  at  his  heart,  shouted  in  his  ears  and 
driven  him  mad. 

Something  had  taken  Rachel  out  of  him.  Time 
had  eaten  her  image  out  of  him.  He  had  remem- 
bered this  in  the  cafe.  But  why  had  he  fired  at 
the  stranger?  Because  the  man's  eyes  blazed. 
Because  he  had  become  for  an  instant  an  intol- 
erable comrade. 

''We  fought  each  other  for  what  someone  else 
had  done  to  us,"  Dorn  murmured.  "Not  Rachel 
but  someone  that  couldn't  be  touched.  Absurd ! " 
Hazlitt  slipped  like  a  shadow  out  of  his  mind — 
an  unanswered  question. 

The  throbbing  ship  with  its  tinkling  orchestra, 
its  laughing,  chattering  faces,  was  carrying  him 
home  over  a  dark  sea.  At  night  he  sat  alone 
watching  the  circle  of  water.  Four  vanished 
nights.  Four  more  nights.  He  sighed.  The 
sadness  that  lay  in  his  heart  desired  to  talk  to  him. 
He  struggled  to  change  his  thinking.  Ideas  that 
were  new  to  him  arose  at  night  on  the  ship. 


374  Erik  Dorn 

"Not  now,"  he  whispered.  He  was  postponing 
something.  But  the  night  and  the  rolling  sea 
were  swallowing  his  resistance.  Words  that  would 
tell  him  the  pain  in  his  heart  waited  for  him.  .  .  . 
"Anna.  Dear  God,  Anna!  It's  that.  But  why 
Anna  now?  It  was  easy  before." 

Words  of  Anna  waited  for  him.  He  stared  into 
the  dark. 

"I  want  her.  I  must  go  back  to  her.  Anna, 
forgive  me!" 

A  murmur  that  the  darkness  might  understand. 
The  long  rolling  sea  listened  automatically.  Weak 
fool!  Yet  he  felt  better.  He  could  think  now 
without  hiding  from  words  that  waited. 

His  heart  wept  in  silence.  The  unbidden  ones 
came.  .  .  .  Anna — standing  looking  at  him.  A 
despair,  a  death  in  her  face.  Something  tearing 
itself  out  of  her.  What  pain!  But  no  sound. 
An  agony  deeper  than  sound  in  her  eyes.  He 
trembled  at  the  memory.  The  crucified  happy 
one.  .  .  . 

Dear  God,  would  he  always  have  to  remember 
now?  Other  pictures  were  gone.  They  had 
drifted  away  leaving  little  phrases  dragging  in  his 
thought.  Now  Anna  had  found  him.  Not  a 
phantom,  but  the  thing  as  he  had  left  it,  without 
a  detail  gone.  The  gesture  of  her  agony  intact. 
His  thought  shifted  vainly  away.  He  knew  she 
was  standing  as  he  had  left  her — horribly  inani- 
mate— and  he  must  go  back.  He  would  hold  her 
in  his  arms,  kiss  her  lips,  kneel  before  her  weeping 


Silence  375 

for  forgiveness.  Ah !  he  would  be  kind.  At  night 
he  would  sit  holding  her  head  in  his  arms,  stroking 
her  hair;  whispering,  "Forget  .  .  .  forget!  A 
year  or  two  of  madness — gone  forever.  But  years 
now  waitng  for  us.  New  years.  Everything  is 
gone  but  us.  That  brought  me  back.  Mists 
blew  away.  Dear  Anna,  I  love  you." 

He  was  making  love  to  Anna,  his  wife.  A  droll 
finale.  Tears  came  in  his  eyes.  There  lay  happi- 
ness. She  would  move  again.  The  rigid  figure 
that  he  had  left  behind  and  that  was  waiting 
rigidly,  would  smile  again.  He  plunged  desper- 
ately into  the  dream  of  words  to  be.  The  music 
from  the  salon  had  ended.  Better,  silence.  Noth- 
ing to  remind  one  of  the  fugitive  tinkle  of  life. 
A  dark,  interminable  sea,  a  moon  road,  a  sigh 
of  rolling  water  and  a  ship  throbbing  in  the 
night. 

"Dear  Anna,  I  love  you."  And  she  would 
smile,  her  white  face  and  eyes  that  were  constant 
as  the  stars.  Constant,  eternal.  Love  that  was 
no  mystery  but  a  caress  of  sea  nights.  Forgive 
him.  And  her  sorrow  would  heal  under  his  fin- 
gers. It  would  end  all  right.  The  two  years — 
the  halloo  of  strange  sterile  things — buried  under 
the  smile  of  her  eyes  .  .  .  deep,  sorrowful,  beau- 
tiful. Words  to  be.  "Anna  we  will  grow  old 
together,  holding  to  each  other  and  smiling ;  lovers 
whom  the  years  make  always  younger."  Words 
that  were  to  heal  the  strange  sadness  that  had 
come  to  him  and  start  a  dead  figure  into  life. 


376  Erik  Dorn 

He  stood  up  and  walked  to  the  rail,  staring  into 
the  churn  of  water  underneath. 

" It's  slow,"  he  murmured.     "Four  more  days." 

Anna's  love  would  hide  the  world  from  him. 
But  a  fear  loosened  his  heart.  The  smell  of  sea 
whirled  in  his  veins. 

"  Perhaps,"  he  thought  dreamily,  "perhaps  there 
will  be  nothing.  She  will  say  no." 

He  hesitated,  straightened  with  a  sigh. 

"A  wife  deserter,  a  seducer,  a  murderer.  I 
mustn't  expect  too  much,  eh,  von  Stinnes?" 

He  smiled  at  the  night.  The  sound  of  the 
Baron's  name  seemed  to  bring  a  strength  into  him. 
He  walked  toward  his  berth,  his  head  unneces- 
sarily high,  smoking  at  his  cigarette  and  humming 
a  tune  remembered  from  the  Munich  cafes. 


CHAPTER  II 

T^HERE  were  people  in  New  York  who  came 
*  to  Erik  Dorn  and  said:  "Tell  us  about 
Europe.  And  Germany.  Is  it  really  true  that 
.  •*..»?  As  if  there  were  some  inner  revelation — 
a  few  precious  phrases  of  undistilled  truth  that  the 
correspondent  of  the  New  Opinion  had  seen  fit  to 
withhold  from  his  communications. 

The  skyscrapers  were  intact.  Windows  shot 
into  the  air.  Streets  bubbled  with  people.  A 
useless  sky  clung  tenaciously  to  its  position  above 
the  roof -gardens.  The  scene  was  amiable.  Dorn 
spent  a  day  congratulating  himself  upon  the 
genius  of  his  homeland.  He  felt  a  pride  in  the 
unbearable  confusion  of  architecture  and  traffic. 

But  in  the  nine  months  of  his  absence  there  had 
been  a  change ;  or  at  least  a  change  seemed  to  have 
occurred.  Perhaps  he  had  brought  the  change 
with  him.  It  was  evident  that  the  Niagara  of 
news  pouring  out  of  Europe  into  the  press  and 
periodicals  of  the  day  had  inundated  the  provin- 
cialism of  his  countrymen.  People  were  flounder- 
ing about  in  a  daze  of  facts — groping  ludicrously 
through  labyrinths  of  information. 

It  had  been  easy  during  the  war.  Democracy- 
Autocracy;  a  tableau  to  look  at.  Thought  had 

377 


378  Erik  Dorn 

been  unnecessary.  In  fact,  the  popular  intelli- 
gence had  legislated  against  it.  The  tableau  was 
enough — a  sublimated  symbol  of  the  little  papier- 
mache  rigmarole  of  their  daily  lives,  the  immemo- 
rial spectacle  of  Good  and  Evil  at  death  grips, 
limelighted  for  a  moment  by  the  cannon  in  France. 
The  unreason  and  imbecility  of  the  mob  crowned 
themselves.  Thought  became  lese  majeste. 

Dorn  returned  to  find  the  tableau  had  suffered 
an  explosion.  It  had  for  some  mysterious  reason 
glibly  identified  as  reaction  burst  into  fragments 
and  vanished  in  a  skyrocket  chaos.  Shantung, 
Poland,  little  nations,  pogroms,  plebiscites,  Ire- 
land, steel  strikes,  red  armies,  Fourteen  Points, 
The  Truth  About  This,  The  Real  Story  of  That, 
the  League  of  Nations,  the  riots  in  Berlin,  in  Dub- 
lin, Milan,  Paris,  London,  Chicago ;  secret  treaties, 
pacts,  betrayals,  Kolchak — an  incomprehensible 
muddle  of  newspaper  headlines  shrieked  from 
morning  to  morning  and  said  nothing.  The  dis- 
tracted mob  become  privy  for  the  moment  to  the 
vast  biological  disorder  eternally  existent  under 
its  nose,  snorted,  yelped,  and  shook  indignant 
sawdust  out  of  its  ears. 

In  vain  the  editorial  Jabberwocks  came  gallop- 
ing daily  down  the  slopes  of  Sinai  bearing  new 
tablets  written  in  fire.  The  original  and  only 
genuine  tableau  was  gone.  The  starry  heavens 
which  concealed  the  Deity  Himself  had  become  a 
junkpile  full  of  its  fragments. 

"In  the  temporary  collapse  of  the  banalities 


Silence  379 

that  conceal  the  world  from  their  eyes,"  thought 
Dora,  "they're  trying  to  figure  out  what's  really 
what  around  them — and  making  a  rather 
humorous  mess  of  it." 

He  went  about  for  several  days  dining  with 
friends,  conferring  with  Edwards  and  the  directors 
of  the  New  Opinion,  and  slowly  shaping  his  "ex- 
periences abroad"  into  phonograph  records  that 
played  themselves  automatically  under  the  needles 
of  questions. 

At  night,  he  amused  himself  with  reading  the 
radical  and  conservative  periodicals,  his  own 
magazine  among  them. 

"The  thing  isn't  confined  to  the  bloated  capital- 
ists alone,"  he  laughed  one  afternoon  while  sitting 
with  Warren  Lockwood  in  the  latter's  rooms. 
"The  radicals  are  up  a  tree  and  the  conserva- 
tives down  a  cellar.  What  do  you  make  of  it, 
Warren?" 

"I  haven't  paid  much  attention  to  it,"  the 
novelist  smiled.  "I've  been  busy  on  a  book. 
What's  all  this  stuff  about  Germany,  anyway?  I 
read  some  things  of  yours  but  I  can't  figure  it  out." 

Dorn  exploded  with  another  laugh. 

' '  You're  all  a  pack  of  simpletons  and  bounders, 
still  moist  behind  the  ears,  Warren.  The  whole 
lot  of  you.  I've  been  in  New  York  three  days  and 
I've  begun  to  feel  that  there  isn't  a  remotely  in- 
telligent human  animal  in  the  place.  I'm  going 
to  retreat  inland.  In  Chicago,  at  least,  people  know 
enough  to  keep  their  mouths  shut.  I'll  tell  you 


Erik  Dorn 


what  the  trouble  is  in  a  nutshell.  People  want 
things  straight  again.  They  want  black  and  white 
so's  they  can  all  mass  on  the  white  side  and  make 
faces  at  the  evil-doers  who  prefer  the  black.  They 
don't  want  facts,  diagnosis,  theories,  interpreta- 
tions, reports.  They  want  somebody  to  stand  up 
and  announce  in  a  loud,  clear  voice,  'Tweedledum 
is  wrong.  Tweedledee  is  right,  everything  else 
to  the  contrary  is  Poppycock.'  Thus  they'd  be 
able  to  put  an  end  to  their  own  thinking  and  bury 
themselves  in  their  own  little  alleys  and  be  happy 
again.  You  know  as  well  as  I,  it  makes  them 
miserable  to  think.  Restless,  irritable,  indignant. 
It's  like  having  bites  —  the  more  they're  scratched 
the  worse  they  itch.  It's  the  war,  of  course. 
The  war  has  been  a  failure.  The  race  has  caught 
itself  red-handed  in  a  lie.  Now  everybody  is 
running  around  trying  to  confess  to  everybody  else 
that  what  he  said  in  the  past  was  a  lie  and  that  the 
real  truth  is  as  follows.  And  there's  where  the 
trouble  begins.  There  ain't  no  such  animal." 

"I  see,"  said  Lockwood,  smiling. 

"Yes,  you  do,"  Dorn  grinned.  "You  don't  see 
anything.  The  trouble  is  ..  .  .  oh,  well,  the 
trouble  is  as  I  said  that  the  human  race  is  out  in 
the  open  where  it  can  get  a  good  look  at  itself. 
The  war  raised  a  curtain.  .  .  .  " 

'  '  What  about  the  radicals,  though  ?  They  seem 
to  be  saying  something  definite?" 

"Yes,  shooting  one  another  down  by  the  thou- 
sands in  Berlin  —  as  they  will  some  day  in  New 


Silence  381 

York.  Yes,  the  radicals  are  definite  enough. 
.  .  .  The  revolution  rumbling  away  in  Ger- 
many isn't  a  standup  fight  between  Capital  and 
Labor.  It's  Radical  versus  Radical.  Just  as 
the  war  was  Imperialist  versus  Imperialist.  One 
of  the  outstanding  lessons  of  the  last  decade  is  the 
fact  that  the  world's  natural  enemies  haven't  yet 
had  a  chance  at  each  other,  being  too  busy  murder- 
ing among  themselves.  It's  coming,  though. 
Another  tableau.  All  this  hysteria  and  uncer- 
tainty will  gradually  simmer  down  into  another 
right-and-wrong  issue — with  life  boiling  away  as 
always  under  a  black  and  white  surface." 

"Do  you  think  we're  going  to  go  red  here?" 
Lockwood  asked  pensively. 

' '  It'll  take  a  little  time,"  Dorn  went  on.  He  had 
become  used  to  reciting  his  answers  in  the  manner 
of  a  schoolmaster.  "But  it's  bound  to  happen. 
Bolshevism  is  a  logical  evolution  of  democracy — 
another  step  downward  in  the  descent  of  the  in- 
dividual. Until  the  arrival  of  Lenine  and  Trotzky 
on  the  field,  there's  no  question  but  what  American 
Democracy  was  the  most  atrocious  insult  leveled 
at  the  intelligence  of  the  race  by  its  inferiors. 
Bolshevism  goes  us  one  better,  however.  And 
just  as  soon  as  our  lowest  types,  meaning  the  ma- 
jority of  our  politicians,  thinkers,  and  writers,  get 
to  realizing  that  bolshevism  isn't  a  Red  Terror 
with  a  bomb  in  one  hand  and  a  dagger  in  the  other, 
but  a  state  of  society  surpassing  even  their  own 
in  points  of  weakness  and  abnormal  silliness, 


382  Erik  Dorn 

they'll  start  arresting  everybody  who  isn't  a  bol- 
shevist.  Capital  will  put  up  a  fight,  but  capital 
is  already  doomed  in  this  country.  It  isn't  re- 
spected for  its  strength,  vision,  and  creative 
powers.  It  is  tolerated  to-day  for  no  other  reason 
than  that  it  has  cornered  the  platitude  market. 
I'm  telling  you,  Warren,  that  when  we  get  it 
drummed  into  our  heads  that  bolshevism  isn't 
strong  and  powerful,  but  weaker,  more  prohibitive, 
more  sentimental,  more  politically  inefficient,  and 
generally  worse  than  our  own  government,  we'll 
have  a  dictator  of  the  proletaire  in  Washington 
within  a  week." 

Lockwood  sighed  unhappily  and  lighted  a  pipe. 

"If  you  were  talking  about  men  and  women 
maybe  I  could  join  you,"  he  answered.  "But  I 
got  a  hunch  you're  just  another  one  of  those  news- 
paper Neds.  The  woods  are  full  of  smart  alecks 
like  you  and  they  make  me  kind  of  tired,  because 
I  never  can  figure  out  what  they're  talking  about. 
And  I'll  be  damned  if  they  know  themselves. 
They  think  in  big  hunks  and  keep  a  lot  of  words 
floating  in  the  air.  .  .  .  What  old  Carl  calls 
'Blaa  .  .  .  blaa.  .  .  ."' 

The  two  friends  sat  regarding  each  other 
critically.  Dorn  nodded  after  a  pause. 

"You're  right,"  he  smiled.  "I'm  part  of  the 
blaa-blaa.  I  heard  them  blaa-blaa  with  guns  in 
Munich  xDne  night.  And  up  in  the  Baltic.  You're 
right.  Anything  one  says  about  absurdity  be- 
comes absurd  itself.  And  talking  about  the  human 


Silence  383 

race  in  chunks  is  necessarily  talking  absurdly. 
Tell  me  about  that  fellow  Tesla." 

"They  deported  him  to  Rooshia,"  Lockwood 
answered.  "  There  was  quite  a  romance  about 
the  girl.  That  was  your  girl,  wasn't  it  ?  • 

1 '  Yes,  Rachel.     She  wouldn't  tag  along,  eh  ? " 

"No.  I  suppose  they  wouldn't  let  her.  I 
don't  know.  There  was  a  lot  of  stuff  in  the  news- 
papers." 

The  novelist  seemed  to  hesitate  on  the  brink  of 
further  information.  His  friend  smiled  under- 
standingly. 

"It  doesn't  matter,  Warren.  Go  ahead. 
Shoot." 

"Cured,  eh?" 

"No— dead." 

Lockwood  nodded  sagely,  his  mouth  half  open 
as  if  his  words  were  staring  at  Dorn. 

"Well,  there  isn't  much  I  know.  I  met  a  little 
girl  the  other  day — Mary  James;  know  her?" 

"Yes." 

"She  was  quite  excited.  She  told  me  something 
about  an  artist  that  used  to  hang  around  Tesla. 
It  seems  that  he  kidnapped  her  and  carted  her  to 
Chicago.  This  James  girl  was  all  upset." 

An  interruption  in  the  person  of  Edwards  the 
editor  occurred.  The  talk  lapsed  once  more  into 
world  problems  with  Lockwood  listening,  skepti- 
cally open-mouthed. 

Late  in  the  evening  Edwards  suddenly  declared, 
"You're  making  a  big  mistake  leaving  New  York, 


384  Erik  Dorn 

Erik.  You've  got  a  market  now.  Your  stuff 
went  big." 

"I'm  through,"  Dorn  answered.  He  arose 
and  took  his  hat.  "I'm  leaving  for  Chicago 
to-morrow." 

He  paused,  smiling  at  Lockwood. 

"  I'm  going  home. ' ' 

The  novelist  nodded  sagely  and  murmured, 
"Uh-huh.  Well,  good-night." 

Making  his  way  slowly  through  the  night  crowds 
and  electrophobia  of  lower  Manhattan,  Dorn  felt 
peacefully  out  of  place.  His  thought  had  become : 
"I  want  to  get  back  to  where  I  was."  In  the 
midst  of  the  mechanical  carnival  of  Broadway  he 
caught  a  memory  of  himself  walking  to  work  with 
a  stream  of  faces — of  a  sardonic  Erik  Dorn  to  whom 
the  street  was  a  pattern;  to  whom  the  mysteries 
tugging  at  heels  that  scratched  the  pavements 
were  the  amusing  variants  of  nothing. 


CHAPTER  III 


JL-"     "Yes,  dear." 

"I  have  some  news  for  you." 

The  round,  smiling  face  of  Eddy  Meredith  that 
refused  to  change  with  age,  beamed  at  Anna. 

"Erik's  back." 

The  beam  hesitated. 

"He  wrote.     He's  coming  to  see  me." 

"Anna.  ..." 

"Yes,  dear,  I  know.  It  sort  of  frightens  me, 
too.  But,"  she  laughed  quietly,  "there  is  nothing 
to  be  frightened  about.  He  didn't  give  any 
address  or  I  would  have  written  him  telling  him." 

"He  must  know  you're  divorced,"  Meredith 
spoke  nervously. 

"I  don't  know  if  he  does,  Eddy." 

She  reached  her  hand  out  and  placed  it  over  his, 
her  eyes  glancing  at  the  figure  of  Isaac  Dorn.  He 
was  asleep  in  a  chair. 

"Please,  dearest,  don't  worry,"  she  whispered. 

"It  11  be  hard  for  you." 

Meredith's  face  acquired  an  abnormal  expres- 
sion. 

"Maybe  you'll  feel  different."     He  sighed,  and 
Anna  shook  her  head.     "When's  he  coming?" 
*s  385 


386  Erik  Dorn 

i 

"To-morrow  night." 

"Did  he  say  anything  in  the  letter ?" 

She  stood  up  and  went  to  a  desk. 

"Here  it  is."  A  smile  touched  her  lips.  "He 
always  wrote  curious  letters.  Words  and  words 
when  there  was  nothing  to  say.  And  a  single 
phrase  when  there  was  something."  She  read 
from  a  sheet  of  paper —  ' ' '  Dear  Anna,  I  am  coming 
home.  Erik.'" 

In  the  corner  Isaac  Dorn  opened  his  watery 
eyes  and  stared  at  the  ceiling. 

"Are  you  awake,  father?" 

"Yes,  Anna." 

"Did  I  tell  you  I'd  heard  from  Erik?" 

The  old  man  mumbled  in  his  beard. 

"He'll  be  out  to-morrow  night,"  she  said, 
smiling  at  him.  He  nodded  his  head,  stared  at 
her,  and  seemed  to  doze  off  again. 

' '  Father  is  failing, ' '  Anna  whispered.  Meredith 
had  arisen.  His  face  had  grown  blank.  He 
walked  toward  the  hall,  saying,  "I'll  go  now." 

Anna  came  quickly  to  him.  Her  hands  reached 
his  shoulders  and  she  stood  regarding  him  intently. 

"There's  nothing  any  more,  dear.  It  all  ended 
long  ago.  Perhaps  I'll  be  sad  when  I  see  him. 
But  sad  only  for  him." 

Meredith  smiled  and  spoke  with  an  effort  at 
lightness. 

"Remember,  I  don't  hold  you  to  anything.  I 
want  you  only  to  be  happy.  In  your  own  way. 
Not  in  my  way.  And  if  it  will  mean  happiness 


Silence  387 

for  you  to  ...  for  you  to  go  back,  why  .  .  . " 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  continued  to  smile 
with  hurt  eyes. 

"Eddy.  .  .  ."  Her  face  came  close  to  his. 
He  heaitated  until  her  arms  closed  tightly  around 
him.  He  felt  her  warm  lips  cling  and  open. 

"You've  never  kissed  like  that  before,  Anna." 
There  was  almost  a  fear  in  his  voice. 

"Because  I  never  knew  I  wanted  you,"  she 
whispered,  "till  now — till  this  minute;  till  you 
said  about  my  going  back." 

Her  face  was  alive  with  emotion.  A  laugh,  and 
she  was  in  his  arms  again.  They  stood  embraced, 
murmuring  tenderly  to  each  other. 

Later  in  her  bedroom  Anna  undressed  slowly. 
Her  thoughts  seemed  to  be  quarreling  with  her 
emotions,  her  emotions  with  her  thoughts.  This 
was  Erik's  room — ancient  torture  chamber. 
Something  still  clinging  to  its  walls  and  furniture. 
Ah,  nights  of  agony  still  in  the  air  she  breathed. 
Her  words  formed  themselves  quietly.  They 
came  to  peer  into  her  heart — polite  visitors  standing 
on  tiptoe  before  a  closed  cell  that  hid  something. 

"Is  there  anything?"  she  murmured.  "No. 
I'm  different." 

She  thought  of  the  day  she  had  come  out  of  a 
grave  and  resumed  living.  It  had  seemed  as  if  she 
must  learn  to  walk  again,  to  breathe,  to  discover 
anew  the  meanings  of  words.  At  first — listless, 
uncertain.  Then  new  steps,  new  meanings.  Her 
mind  moved  back  through  the  year.  She  had 


388  Erik  Dorn 

wept  only  once — on  the  night  of  the  divorce.  But 
that  was  as  one  weeps  at  an  old  grave,  even  a 
stranger's  grave.  The  rest  had  been  Eddy. 

"  I've  changed.  And  I've  been  happier  in  many 
ways." 

She  was  talking  to  herself.  Why?  "I'm  a 
different  Anna."  But  why  think  of  it?  It  was 
settled. 

She  lay  in  the  bed  and  her  eyes  opened  at  the 
darkness.  Here  was  where  she  had  lain  when  she 
had  died.  Each  night,  new  deaths.  Here  the 
lonely  darkness  that  had  once  choked  her,  torn  at 
her  eyes  and  made  her  scream  aloud  with  pain. 
Things  on  the  other  side  of  a  grave.  Memories 
become  alien.  Things  of  long  ago,  when  the 
whisper  of  the  dark  came  like  an  insanity  into  her 
brain.  "Erik  gone!  Erik  gone!  Gone!"  A 
word  that  beat  at  her  until  she  died — to  awake  in 
the  morning  and  stumble  once  more  through  a 
day. 

Now  she  regarded  the  dark  quietly.  Black. 
It  had  no  shape.  It  lay  everywhere  about  her. 
But  it  did  not  burn  nor  choke.  A  peaceful,  harm- 
less dark  that  could  only  whisper  as  if  it  were  ask- 
ing something.  What  was  it  asking?  Long 
arms  of  night  reaching  out  for  something.  But 
there  was  nothing  to  give,  even  if  she  wanted  to. 
Not  even  tears.  Nothing  to  give,  even  though  it 
whispered  for  alms.  Whispered,  "Erik  .  .  . 
Erik! "  But  there  was  no  little  memory.  No  big 
memory.  Dead.  Torn  out  of  her.  So  the  dark 


Silence  389 

whispered  to  a  dead  thing  in  her  that  did  not  stir. 
A  smile  like  a  tired  little  gesture  passed  over  her. 
"Poor  Erik,  poor  Erik!"  she  murmured.  "He 
must  be  thinking  things  that  are  no  more." 

She  grew  chill  for  an  instant.  .  .  .  The 
memory  of  agonies,  of  the  screams  her  love  had 
uttered  as  it  died. 

"Poor  Erik!" 

She  buried  her  cool  cheek  restlessly  in  the  pillow, 


CHAPTER  IV 

EVERYTHING  the  same  as  it  had  been.  As 
••--1  if  he  had  stepped  out  of  the  office  for  a  walk 
around  the  block  and  come  back.  But  a  sameness 
that  had  lost  its  familiarity.  Old  furniture,  old 
faces,  intensely  a  part  of  his  consciousness,  yet 
grown  strange.  It  was  like  forgetting  suddenly 
the  name  of  a  life-long  friend. 

His  entrance  created  a  stir  of  excitement.  He 
had  spent  the  preceding  two  days  arranging  with 
the  chief  for  his  return.  Barring  the  Nietzschean 
who  had  functioned  in  his  absence,  none  had  ex- 
pected him. 

He  pushed  open  the  swinging  door  with  an  old 
gesture,  and  walked  to  his  desk.  Here  he  sat 
fumbling  casually  with  proofs  and  the  contents 
of  pigeonholes.  An  old  routine  saying,  "Pick 
me  up."  Familiar  trifles  rebuked  him.  The  staff 
sauntered  up  one  by  one  to  greet  him.  Crowley, 
Mortinson,  Sweeney. 

Well,  glad  to  see  you  back.    We've  sure  missed 
you  around  here." 

Handshakes,  smiles,  embarrassed  questions.  A 
few  strange  faces  to  be  resented  and  ignored.  A 
strange  locker  arrangement  in  a  corner  to  be 
frowned  at.  But  the  rest  of  it  familiar,  poignant — 

390 


Silence  391 

a  world  where  he  belonged,  but  that  somehow  did 
not  seem  to  fit  as  snugly  as  once.  Handshakes  in 
the  hall.  A  faint  cheer  in  the  composing-room  as 
he  sauntered  for  the  first  time  to  the  stone.  Slaps 
on  the  back.  Busy  men  pausing  to  look  at  him 
with  suddenly  lighted  faces.  "Well,  Mr.  Dorn, 
greetings!  How  are  ye?  You're  looking  fine.  ..." 

His  world.  It  was  the  same,  only  now  he  was 
conscious  of  it.  Before  he  had  sat  in  its  midst  un- 
aware of  more  than  a  detail  here,  a  gesture  there. 
Now  he  seemed  to  be  looking  down  from  an  air- 
plane— a  strange  bird's-eye  view  of  things  un- 
strange. 

He  returned  to  his  desk.  The  scene  again 
reached  out  to  embrace  him.  Familiar  colored 
walls,  familiar  chatter  and  flurry  of  the  afternoon 
edition  going  to  press.  He  felt  its  embrace  and  yet 
remained  outside  it.  There  were  things  in  him 
now  that  could  never  be  a  part  of  the  unchanging 
old  shop. 

During  a  lull  in  the  forenoon  he  leaned  back  in 
his  chair  and  stared  into  the  pigeonholes.  Memo- 
ries like  the  unfocused  images  of  a  dream  one  re- 
members in  the  morning  jumbled  in  his  thought. 
The  scene  around  him  made  things  he  recalled 
seem  unreal.  And  the  things  he  recalled  made  the 
scene  around  him  seem  unreal.  He  tried  to  divert 
himself  by  remembering  definitely.  .  .  .  "We 
lay  in  a  moon-lighted  room  and  I  whispered  to  her: 
'You  have  given  me  wings.'  I  held  a  gun  and 
pulled  the  trigger  as  he  jumped  at  me.  .  .  .  Then 


392  Erik  Dorn 

von  Stinnes  took  the  blame.  .  .  .  There's  a 
restaurant  in  Kurfursten  Damm  where  Mathilde 
and  I  ...  What  a  night  in  Munich !  ...  at  the 
Banhoff.  What  do  I  remember  most?  Let  me 
see.  .  .  .  Yes  .  .  .  there  was  a  note  pinned  on 
the  blanket  saying  she  was  gone  and  I  ... 

But  there's  something  else.      What?    Let  me  see. 

» > 

He  tried  to  evoke  clearer  pictures.  But  the 
sentences  that  passed  through  his  mind  seemed 
sterile,  impotent.  The  past,  set  in  motion  by  his 
effort,  evaded  him.  Its  details  blurred  like  the 
spokes  of  a  swiftly  turning  wheel.  He  smiled. 

"A  sinner's  darkest  punishment  is  forgetting  his 
sins,"  he  murmured  to  himself.  He  thought  of 
the  evening  before  him.  ' '  Better  not  think  of  that. 
Read  proofs."  He  had  deferred  his  meeting  with 
Anna  until  he  should  be  able  to  come  to  her  from 
his  desk  in  the  office. 

As  the  day  passed  an  impatience  seized  him. 
The  unfinished  event  brought  a  fear  with  it.  ... 
"I  must  put  it  out  of  my  mind  until  to-night." 
But  it  remained  and  grew. 

In  the  afternoon  he  sat  for  an  hour  talking  to 
Crowley  and  Mortinson.  He  listened  to  them 
chuckle  at  his  anecdotes.  Their  faces  beaming 
with  affectionate  interest  seemed  nevertheless  to 
say,  "All  this  is  interesting,  but  not  very  impor- 
tant. Not  as  important  as  sitting  in  the  office 
here  and  sending  the  paper  to  press  day  after 
day." 


Silence  393 

The  words  he  was  uttering  bored  him.  He  had 
heard  them  too  often.  Yet  he  kept  on  talking, 
trying  to  bury  his  impatience  and  fear  in  the  sound 
of  his  voice.  His  anecdotes  were  no  longer  memo- 
ries. They  seemed  to  have  become  complete  in 
themselves,  related  to  nothing  that  had  ever 
happened.  He  wondered  as  he  talked  if  he  were 
lying.  These  things  he  was  saying  were  somehow 
improvisations — committed  to  memory.  He  kept 
on  talking,  eagerly,  amusingly. 

The  afternoon  passed.  A  walk  through  familiar 
streets  and  it  was  time  for  dinner. 

"I'm  not  hungry.    I'll  eat,  though." 

Yes,  the  evening  ahead  was  important — very 
important.  That  accounted  for  the  tedium  of  the 
day.  But  it  would  be  dark  soon.  There  would  be  a 
to-morrow.  There  had  been  other  important 
evenings.  It  was  not  necessary  to  get  too  nervous. 
He  had  writhed  before  in  the  embrace  of  inter- 
minable hours,  hours  that  seemed  never  to  arrive. 
Then  suddenly  they  came,  looming,  swelling  into 
existence  like  oncoming  locomotives  that  opened 
with  a  sudden  rush  from  little  discs  into  great 
roaring  shapes.  And  once  arrived  they  had  seemed 
to  be  present  forever.  But  suddenly  the  roaring 
shapes  were  little  discs  again.  Hours  died  as 
people  died — with  an  abrupt  obliteration.  Yet 
each  new  moment,  like  each  new  face,  became 
again  interminable.  Time  was  an  endlessness 
whose  vanishing  left  its  illusion  unchanged. 

But  now  it  was  night. 


394  Erik  Dorn 

1 '  At  the  end  of  this  block  is  a  house.  Two  doors 
more.  I  have  no  key.  Ring  the  bell.  God,  but 
I'm  an  idiot.  She'll  answer  the  door  herself. 
What  11  I  say?  That's  her  step.  Hello?  No. 
Walk  in.  Naturally." 

He  stopped  breathing.  The  door  opened.  His 
legs  were  made  of  whalebone.  But  there  was  a 
new  odor  in  the  hallway.  .  ;  .  And  something  new 
here  in  her  face.  He  stood  looking  at  the  woman 
with  whom  he  had  lived  for  seven  years  and  when 
he  said  her  name  it  sounded  like  that  of  a  stranger. 
His  features  had  a  habit  of  smiling.  An  old  habit 
of  narrowing  one  of  his  eyes  and  turning  up  the 
right  corner  of  his  lips.  He  stood  unconscious  of 
his  expression,  his  smile  a  mask  that  had  slapped 
itself  automatically  over  his  face. 

But  they  must  talk.  No,  she  had  him  at  a  dis- 
advantage. Her  silence  could  say  everything  for 
her.  His  silence  could  say  nothing.  He  reached 
forward  and  took  her  hands. 

"Anna.  ..." 

She  was  different.  A  rigidness  gone.  When  he 
had  left  her  she  was  standing,  stiffened.  Now  her 
hands  were  limp.  Her  face  too,  limp.  Her  eyes 
that  looked  at  him  seemed  blind. 

"I've  come  back,  as  you  see." 

That  was  banal.  One  did  not  talk  like  that  to  a 
crucified  one.  Her  hands  slipped  away  and  she 
preceded  him  into  the  room.  He  looked  to  see  his 
father,  but  forgot  to  ask  a  question  about  him. 
Anna  was  standing  straight,  looking  straight  at 


Silence  395 

him.  Not  as  if  he  were  there,  but  as  if  she  were 
alone  with  something. 

"You  must  let  me  talk  first,  Erik." 

Willingly.  It  was  difficult  to  breathe  and  talk 
at  the  same  time.  He  sat  down  as  she  moved  into 
a  chair  opposite. 

Something  was  happening  but  he  couldn't 
tell  yet.  She  was  changed.  Older  or  younger, 
hard  to  tell.  But  changed.  It  was  confusing  to 
look  at  someone  and  look  at  a  different  image  of 
her.  The  different  image  was  in  his  mind.  When 
she  talked  he  could  tell. 

"Did  you  know  that  I  had  gotten  a  divorce, 
Erik?" 

That  was  it,  then.  She  wasn't  his  wife  any  more. 
A  sort  of  hocus-pocus  .  .  .  now  you  are  my  wife, 
now  you  aren't  my  wife. 

"No,  Anna." 

"Four  months  ago." 

"I  was  in  Germany.  ..."  Mathilde,  von 
Stinnes,  es  lebe  die  Welt  Revolution,  made  a  circle 
in  his  head. 

"Yes,  I  know.  I'm  sorry  you  didn't  find 
out." 

It  was  impossible.  Something  impossible  was 
happening.  Of  course,  he  had  known  it  would 
happen.  But  he  had  fooled  himself.  A  clever  thing 
to  do.  He  was  talking  like  a  little  boy  reciting  a 
piece  from  a  platform. 

"I've  come  back  to  you  because  everything  but 
you  has  died.  I  begin  with  the  end  of  what  I  have 


396  Erik  Dorn 

to  say.  I  came  back  from  Europe  .  .  .  because  I 
wanted  you.  ..." 

She  interrupted.  "I  wrote  you  a  letter  when  I 
found  out  about  her.  I  sent  it  to  New  York." 

"I  never  got  it." 

' Tm  sorry." 

Quite  a  formal  procedure  thus  far.  A  letter  had 
miscarried.  One  could  blame  the  mails  for  that. 
And  a  divorce.  Yes,  that  was  formal  too  .  .  . 
"whereas  the  complainant  further  alleges  .  .  ." 
He  felt  that  his  legs  were  trembling.  If  he  spoke 
again  his  voice  would  be  unsteady.  He  did  not 
want  that.  But  someone  had  to  speak.  Not  she. 
She  could  be  silent. 

' '  Anna ' ' — let  his  voice  shake.  Perhaps  it  would 
help  matters.  "  You  've  changed.  ..." 

"  Yes,  Erik.  ..." 

"  I  haven't  much  right  to  ask  for  anything 
else.  ..." 

Why  in  God's  name  could  he  think  clearly  and 
yet  only  talk  like  a  blithering  fool?  He  would 
pause  and  gather  his  wits.  But  then  he  would 
start  making  a  speech  .  .  .  four-score  and  seven 
years  ago  our  forefathers  .  .  . 

"I'm  sorry  you  came,  Erik.  ..." 

This  couldn't  be  Anna.  He  closed  his  mouth 
and  stared.  A  dream  full  of  noises,  voices,  Anna 
saying: 

"We  mustn't  waste  time  regretting  or  worrying 
each  other  about  things.  ...  It's  much  too  late 
now." 


Silence  397 

He  wanted  to  say.  "It  is  impossible  that  you 
do  not  love  me  because  you  once  loved  me,  because 
we  once  lay  in  each  other's  arms  .  .  .  seven  years.*' 
But  there  was  no  Anna  to  say  that  to.  Instead, 
a  stranger- woman.  An  impulse  carried  him  away. 
He  was  kneeling  beside  her,  burying  his  face  in 
her  lap.  It  didn't  matter.  There  was  no  one  to 
see.  Perhaps  her  hand  would  move  gently  over 
his  hair.  No,  she  was  sitting  straight.  Still  alone 
with  something.  She  was  saying : 

"  I'm  sorry.     Please,  Erik,  don't." 

"I  love  you/' 

"No.    No!    Please,  let's  talk. 

He  raised  his  face.  It  was  easier  now  that  he 
was  crying.  He  wouldn't  have  to  be  grammatical 
...  or  finish  sentences. 

"I  understand,  Erik.  I  was  afraid  of  this.  For 
you.  But  you  mustn't.  'Shh !  it's  all  over." 

1 '  No,  Anna.    It  can't  be.    You  are  still  Anna. " 

"Yes.    But  different." 

He  stood  up. 

"Really,  Erik,"  she  was  shaking  her  head  and 
smiling  without  expression,  "everything  is  over. 
I  would  rather  have  written  it  to  you.  I  could 
have  made  it  plain.  But  I  didn't  know  where  to 
reach  you." 

He  let  her  talk  on  and  stood  staring.  Her  face 
was  limp.  There  was  nothing  there.  He  was 
looking  at  a  corpse.  Not  of  her,  but  somehow  of 
himself.  There  in  her  eyes  he  lay  dead — an  oblit- 
eration. He  had  come  back  to  a  part  of  him  that 


398  Erik  Dorn 

had  died.  It  was  buried  where  one  couldn't  see, 
somewhere  behind  her  eyes. 

"I  have  nothing  more  to  say,  Erik.  But  you 
must  understand  what  I  have  said.  Because  it 
means  everything." 

He  listened,  staring  now  at  the  room,  remember- 
ing. They  had  lived  together  once  in  this  room. 
There  was  something  beautiful  about  the  room.  A 
face  that  held  itself  like  a  lighted  lamp  to  his  eyes. 
"Erik,  Erik,  I  love  you.  Oh,  I  love  you  so.  I 
would  die  without  you.  Erik,  my  own!"  The 
walls  and  books  and  chairs  murmured  with  echoes. 
The  familiar  slanting  books  on  their  shelves.  The 
large  leather  chairs  under  the  light.  He  must  weep. 
The  little  things  that  were  familiar — mirrors  in 
which  he  saw  images  and  words  ...  a  white 
body  with  copper  hair  fallen  across  its  ivory ;  white 
arms  clinging  passionately  to  him;  a  voice,  raptur- 
ous, pleading.  He  must  weep  because  he  had  come 
back  to  a  world  that  had  died,  that  looked  at  him 
whispering  with  dead  lips,  "Erik,  my  beloved. 
Oh,  I'm  so  happy  ...  so  happy  when  you  kiss 
me  .  .  .  my  dearest.  ..." 

He  closed  his  eyes  as  tears  burned  out  of  them. 
Anna  in  a  blur.  Still  talking  quietly.  Embar- 
rassed by  his  weeping.  He  was  offering  her  his 
silence  and  his  tears.  He  had  never  stood  like 
this  before  a  woman.  But  it  was  something  other 
than  a  woman — an  ending.  As  if  one  came  upon  a 
figure  dead  in  a  room  and  looked  at  it  and  said 
without  surprise,  "It  is  I." 


Silence  399 

"So  you  see,  Erik,  it's  all  over.  I  can't  tell  you 
how.  It  took  a  long  time,  but  it  seemed  sudden. 
I  don't  know  what  to  say  to  you,  but  it  will  be 
better  to  leave  nothing  unsaid.  I'm  trying  to 
think  of  everything.  I'm  going  to  be  married  next 
month.  Remember,  I'm  not  the  Anna  you  knew. 
She  isn't  getting  married  again.  I'm  somebody 
totally  different.  I  feel  different.  Even  when  I 
walk.  You  never  knew  me.  I  can  remember  our 
years  together  clearly.  But  it  seems  like  a  story 
that  was  once  told  me.  Do  you  understand,  Erik  ? 
I  am  not  bitter  or  sad,  and  I  have  no  blame  for  you. 
You  are  more  than  forgiven.  ..." 

No  words  occurred  to  him.  Somewhere  behind 
the  smooth  face  of  her  he  fancied  lived  a  woman 
whose  arms  were  about  his  neck  and  whose  lips 
were  hungering  for  him. 

1 '  It's  all  very  clear  to  me,  Erik.  I've  thought  of 
it  often.  You  made  me  a  part  of  yourself  and 
when  you  deserted  me,  you  took  that  with  you,  and 
left  me  as  I  am;  as  I  was  born.  ..." 

"Will  you  play  something  on  the  piano  for  me, 
Anna?" 

"No,  Erik." 

He  seated  himself  slowly  and  remained  with  his 
head  down.  There  was  nothing  to  think. 

"  I'll  go  in  a  few  minutes, "  he  muttered. 

Anna,  standing  straight,  watched  him  as  if  she 
were  curious.  He  felt  her  eyes  trying  to  acquaint 
themselves  with  him,  and  failing.  He  was  growing 
angry.  Better  leave  before  he  spoke  again.  Anger 


4°o  Erik  Dorn 

was  in  him.  It  was  she  who  had  been  the  unfaith- 
ful one.  He  could  smile  at  that.  He  stood  up 
then,  and  smiled.  This  was  a  part  of  life,  to  be  felt 
and  appreciated.  A  handshake,  a  smile  that  von 
Stinnes  would  have  applauded,  and  he  would  have 
lived  another  hour. 

* '  On  the  boat  I  made  love  to  you, "  he  said  softly, 
"and  I  am  not  unhappy.  It  is  only — my  turn  to 
weep  a  bit.'* 

He  regarded  her  calmly.  Yes,  if  he  wanted  to 
.  .  .  there  was  something  waiting.  .  .  .  Even 
though  she  thought  it  dead.  If  he  wanted  to,  there 
was  a  grave  to  open,  slowly,  with  tears  and  old 
phrases. 

She  let  him  approach  her.  He  felt  her  body 
grow  rigid  as  he  placed  his  arms  around  her.  His 
lips  touched  her  cold  cheek. 

"It  was  to  make  sure  that  you  were  dead, "  he 
whispered. 

She  nodded. 

...  Another  hour  ended.  He  had  returned.  Now 
he  was  going  away  again  and  the  hour  was  a  disc 
whirling  away,  already  lost  among  other  discs. 

The  street  was  chilly.  He  walked  swiftly.  His 
thoughts  were  assembling  themselves.  Words 
that  had  lain  under  the  tears  in  the  room  thawed 
out. 

"She  will  marry  Meredith  and  the  old  man  will 
come  to  live  with  me.  I  should  have  gone  up- 
stairs and  said  hello.  But  he  was  probably  asleep. 
I'll  take  my  books  and  furniture.  She  won't  need 


Silence  401 

them  with  Meredith.  Get  an  apartment  some- 
where. How  old  am  I  ?  About  forty.  Not  quite. 
Changed  completely.  Curious,  I  didn't  want  her 
after  she'd  talked  about  it.  I  suppose  because  I 
didn't  really  come  for  her — for  somebody  else. 
Conrad  in  quest  of  his  youth.  Lost  youth.  How'd 
that  damn  book  end?  Well,  what  of  it,  what  of  it? 
Things  die  without  saddening  one.  Yet  one  be- 
comes sad.  A  make-believe.  That's  right.  No 
matter  what  happens  you  keep  right  on  thinking 
and  breathing  as  if  it  were  all  outside.  Yes,  that's 
it — outside;  a  poignant  comedy  outside  that  talks 
to  one.  Death  is  the  only  thing  that  has  reality. 
We  must  not  take  the  rest  too  seriously.  If  I  get 
too  bored  I  can  remember  that  I  killed  a  man  and 
develop  a  stricken  conscience.  Poppycock!  .  .  . 
The  old  man'll  be  a  nuisance.  But  he's  quiet, 
thank  God!  Well,  well  .  .  .  I'm  too  civilized. 
I  suppose  I  made  an  ass  of  myself.  No.  ...  A 
few  tears  more  or  less.  ..." 

His  thought  paused.  He  walked,  looking  at 
things — curbings,  houses,  street  trees,  lights  in 
windows.  He  resumed,  after  blocks : 

"  Good  God,  what  a  thing  happened  to  her !  To 
change  like  that.  An  awfulness  about  it.  Death 
in  life.  Have  I  changed?  No.  I'm  the  same. 
But  that's  a  lie.  I  was  in  love  once  ...  a  face 
like  a  mirror  of  stars.  The  phrase  grows  humorous 
with  repetition.  It  doesn't  mean  anything.  What 
did  it  mean?  Like  trying  to  remember  a  tooth- 
ache .  .  .  which  tooth  ached.  But  it  only  lasted 
26 


402  Erik  Dorn 

.  .  .  let's  see.  Rachel,  Rachel.  .  .  .  Nothing. 
It  was  gone  a  week  after  I  came  to  her.  The  rest 
was — a  restlessness  .  .  .  wanting  something.  Not 
having  it.  Well,  it  doesn't  matter  now/' 

In  his  hotel  room  he  undressed  without  turning 
on  the  lights.  He  felt  nervous,  vaguely  afraid  of 
himself. 

"I  might  commit  suicide.  Rather  stupid, 
though.  I'll  die  soon  enough.  Maybe  a  few  more 
things  left  to  see  and  feel  and  forget.  Who  knows? 
I'll  have  to  look  up  some  of  the  ladies." 

He  crawled  into  bed  and  grew  promptly  sleep- 
less. 

"If  I'm  honest  I'll  be  able  to  amuse  myself.  If 
not  .  .  .  oh,  Lord,  what  a  mess!  No.  Why  is  it? 
Life  runs  away  like  that — hits  you  in  the  eye  and 
runs  away." 

He  closed  his  eyes  and  sighed.  Like  himself, 
the  world  was  full  of  people  who  lived  on.  Things 
ended  for  them  and  nobody  could  tell  the  difference, 
not  even  themselves.  Being  happy — what  the 
devil  was  that?  Happiness — unhappiness — you 
slept  as  soundly  and  ate  as  heartily. 

"I'm  a  little  tired  to-night."  An  excuse  for 
something.  He  was  afraid.  He  reached  over  to 
the  small  table  near  the  bed  and  secured  a  cigarette. 
Lighting  it,  he  lay  on  his  back,  blowing  smoke 
carefully  into  the  dark  and  watching  the  tobacco 
glow  under  his  nose. 

"Damn  good  thing  I'm  not  an  author.  End  up 
as  a  cross  between  Maeterlinck  and  Laura  Jean. 


Silence  4°3 

One  could  write  a  volume  on  a  cigarette  glowing 
in  the  dark." 

He  puffed  until  the  tobacco  was  almost  ended. 
He  placed  the  still-kindled  stub  on  the  table  and 
sighed : 

"Yes,  that's  me.  Life  has  had  its  lips  to  me 
blowing  smoke  and  fire  out  of  me.  And  now  a 
table  top  on  which  to  glow  reminiscently  for  a 
moment.  And  cool  into  ashes.  Apologies  to  Laura 
Jean,  Marie  Corelli — and  God. " 


CHAPTER  V 

RACHEL,  removing  her  heavy  coat,  walked 
briskly  to  the  grate  fire  burning  in  the  rear 
of  the  studio.  She  stood  looking  into  the  flames 
and  rubbing  the  cold  out  of  her  hands. 

''Well,  I  kept  the  appointment,  Frank." 

Brander,  the  artist,  sprawled  on  a  cushion- 
littered  couch,  sat  up  slowly.  His  heavy  eyes 
regarded  her. 

"We  had  quite  a  talk.  You  know  his  wife  has 
remarried." 

1 '  That  so  ?  "    Rachel  laughed. 

"Mr.  Dorn  sends  you  his  regards." 

"That '11  be  enough." 

"I  must  say  he's  much  cleverer  than  you, 
Frank." 

' '  What  did  you  talk  about  ?    Soul  stuff,  eh  ?  " 

"Oh,  not  entirely." 

She  came  over  to  the  couch  and  patted  his 
cheeks. 

"My  hands — feel  how  cold  they  are." 

"Never  mind  your  hands.  What  did  our  good 
friend  have  to  say  for  himself?" 

"Oh,  talk."  Her  dark  eyes  glanced  enigmatic- 
ally from  his  stare. 

Brander  swore.  "I  want  to  know,  d'you  hear?" 
404 


Silence  4°5 

"Dear  me!  Soulmate  bares  all."  She  laughed 
and  walked  with  a  sensual  swing  down  the  long 
room. 

Brander,  without  stirring,  repeated,  "Yes, 
everything." 

Rachel's  face  sobered 

"Why,  there's  nothing  Frank—of  interest." 

"Hell,  I've  caught  you  crying  over  him." 

"Well,  what  of  that?  A  woman's  tears,  you 
know,  a  woman's  tears,  don't  mean  anything." 

"They  don't,  eh?" 

"No."  The  sight  of  him  hunched  amid  the 
cushions  seemed  to  appeal  to  her  humor.  A  large, 
strong  monkey  face  against  blue,  green,  and  yellow 
pillow  faces.  She  laughed. 

"Well,  I'll  tell  you  something.  There's  going  to 
be  no  soul  stuff  in  this.  You're  mine.  And  if  you 
start  any  flapdoodle  hand-holding  with  our  good 
friend,  I'll  knock  your  heads  together  into  a  pulp." 

He  raised  his  large  shoulders  and  glowered 
majestically.  Rachel,  paused  beside  a  canvas, 
regarded  him  with  half -closed  eyes  and  smiling 
lips. 

"He  sent  his  kindest  wishes  to  you." 

Brander  left  his  seat  and  strode  toward  her. 

"That's  enough." 

"And  asked  us  to  call.  And  if  we  couldn't  come 
together,  I  might  call  alone,"  she  spoke  quickly. 
Her  eyes  were  mocking.  An  oath  from  Brander 
seemed  to  amuse  her. 

"You're  in  love  with  him,"  he  muttered,  his 


4°6  Erik  Dorn 

fingers  tightening  about  her  wrist.  "Come,  out 
with  it !  I  want  to  know. " 

"Yes."  Rachel's  eyes  grew  taunting.  "He  is 
the  knight  in  shining  armor,  fairy  prince,  and  the 
man  in  the  moon.'* 

' '  Never  mind  laughing.    I  want  to  know. ' ' 

"Well,  listen  then."  Her  voice  grew  vibrant 
as  if  a  laugh  were  talking.  "His  eyes  are  the 
beckoning  hands  of  dream.  Poor  Frank  doesn't 
know  what  that  means. " 

Brander  swung  her  toward  the  couch.  She  fell 
amid  the  cushions  with  a  laugh.  He  stood  looking 
at  her  and  then  walked  slowly. 

'  *  Don't  touch  me.    Don't  you  dare ! " 

A  grin  crossed  the  artist's  face. 

"I  know  you  and  your  kind,"  he  answered, 
"mooney  girls.  Mooney-headed  girls.  I've  had 
'em  before." 

"Keep  away.  ..." 

Her  face  as  he  bent  over  her  glowed  with  a 
sudden  terror. 

"Mooney  girls, "  repeated  Brander. 

His  hands  reached  her  shoulders  and  held  her 
carelessly  as  she  squirmed. 

"You're  hurting  me." 

"I'll  hurt  you  more.  Talk  out  now.  Are  you  in 
love  with  that  loon?" 

"Yes." 

"More  than  me?" 

"Yes." 

Brander's   face   reddened.      His   hand   struck 


Silence  407 

her  chin.  Rachel  shut  her  eyes  to  hold  back 
tears. 

"Are  you  still?" 

"  Yes.  Always."  Her  teeth  clenched.  "Goon, 
hit  me,  if  you  want  to.  I  love  him.  Love  him 
always.  Every  minute.  As  I  did.  Do  you  hear? 
I  love  him." 

She  opened  her  eyes  and  shivered.  He  was 
going  to  kill  her.  He  tore  at  her  clothes,  beating 
her  with  his  fists  until  her  head  rattled  on  her  neck. 

"Ill  fix  your  love  for  him, "  Brander  whispered. 
The  pain  of  his  blows  and  shakings  were  making 
her  dizzy. 

"Frank  .  .  .  dear,  please.  ..." 

"Do  you  love  him?" 

"Yes." 

She  tried  to  bury  her  head  in  her  arms,  but  he 
untwisted  her  gesture.  His  hands,  striking  and 
clawing  at  her,  made  her  scream.  A  mist — he  had 
seized  her. 

"Frank!    Frank!" 

"Do  you  love  him  now?" 

She  opened  her  eyes  and  stared  wildly  into 
Brander's  face.  It  grinned  at  her.  Her  arms 
clutched  his  body. 

"No,  no!"  she  cried,  her  mouth  gasping. 
"Don't  talk.  Don't  ask  questions.  Love  .  .  ." 
she  laughed  aloud  eagerly,  brazenly.  Her  thin 
arms  tightened  fiercely  about  him.  "I  love  this. " 


CHAPTER  VI 

ISAAC  DORN  was  sitting  in  a  chair  beside  the 
gas-log  fire  in  his  son's  apartment.  His  thin 
fingers  lay  motionless  on  his  knees.  His  head  had 
fallen  forward. 

It  was  early  evening  when  his  son  entered  the 
room.  Dorn  paused  and  looked  at  the  silent  figure 
in  the  chair.  The  old  man  raised  his  head  as  if 
he  had  been  spoken  to  and  muttered.  "Eh?" 

He  saw  his  son  and  smiled.  He  would  like  to 
talk  to  him.  It  was  lonely  all  day  in  the  house. 
And  things  were  beginning  to  fade  from  his  eyes. 
It  was  hard  even  to  see  if  Erik  was  smiling.  Yes, 
his  face  was  happy.  That  was  good.  People 
should  look  as  Erik  did — amused.  Wait  .  .  . 
wait  long  enough  and  it  all  blurred  and  faded 
gently  away. 

' '  What  made  you  so  late,  Erik  ? "  he  asked.  Now 
his  son  was  laughing.  That  was  a  good  sign. 

"A  lot  of  work  at  the  office.  The  Russians  are 
at  it  again.  And  I  met  an  old  friend  this  after- 
noon. A  dear  old  friend.  Old  friends  make  one 
sentimental  and  garrulous.  So  we  talked." 

He  noticed  the  old  man's  eyes  close  but  con- 
tinued addressing  him. 

"We  discussed  problems  in  mathematics.  How 
408 


Silence  4°9 

many  yesterdays  make  a  to-morrow.  That  gas- 
log  smells  to  high  heaven." 

He  leaned  over  and  turned  out  the  odorous 
flames.  He  noticed  now  that  the  old  man  had 
dozed  off  again.  But  his  talk  went  on.  It  had 
become  a  habit  to  keep  on  talking  to  his  father  who 
dozed  under  his  words.  "She's  going  to  drop 
around  and  visit  us.  And  we  will  perform  a  gentle 
autopsy.  Stir  a  little  cloud  of  dust  out  of  the 
bucket  of  ashes,  eh?  And  perhaps  we  will  come  to 
life  for  a  moment.  Who  knows  ?  At  least,  we  shall 
weep.  And  that  is  something.  To  be  able  to  weep. 
To  know  enough  to  weep.  Her  name  is  Rachel." 

He  paused  and  walked  toward  the  window. 

"Rachel, "  he  repeated,  his  eyes  no  longer  on  the 
old  man.  "Her  name  is  unchanged.  ..." 

He  opened  von  Stinnes's  silver  case  and  removed 
a  cigarette.  He  stood  gazing  at  the  snow  on  roofs, 
on  window  ledges,  on  pavements.  Crystalline 
geometries.  Houses  that  made  little  puzzle 
pictures  against  the  stagnant  curve  of  the  darken- 
ing sky.  A  zig-zag  of  leaden-eyed  windows,  and 
windows  ringed  with  yellow  light  peering  like  cat 
eyes  into  the  winter  dusk.  The  darkness  slowly 
ended  the  scene.  Night  covered  the  snow.  The 
city  opened  its  tiny  yellow  eyes. 

A  street  of  houses  before  him.  A  cigarette  under 
his  nose.  An  old  man  asleep.  Outside  the  window 
the  snow-covered  buildings  stood  in  the  dark  like  a 
skeleton  world,  like  patterns  in  black  and  white.  " 


CONQUEST 

BY 

GERALD  O'DONOVAN 


An  absorbing  novel  of  present-day  Ire- 
land— the  country  that  has  been  illustrat- 
ed, condemned,  and  defended  in  a  myriad 
of  stories,  but  never  explained.  Never 
has  the  complexity  of  her  feud  with  Eng- 
land been  stated  more  fairly  than  in 
Conquest.  Here  is  the  same  lack  of 
compromise  in  workmanship  that  dis- 
tinguished the  author's  Father  Ralph  a  few 
seasons  ago. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


SHOW  DOWN 

By 
Julia  Houston  Railey 

Here  is  a  novel  of  the  new  feminine 
age,  with  a  love  theme  as  ancient  as 
Eve — the  adventurous  story  of  a  small 
town  Southern  girl  who  fairly  erupts 
from  an  Eastern  college  and,  as  a 
social  worker,  boldly  launches  a  fight 
on  crooks  and  rottenness,  a  fight 
which  begins  in  a  pine  woods  school 
and  explodes  in  the  shouting  sessions 
of  a  State  Legislature.  Nancy  Carroll 
is  no  severe,  flat-heeled  reformer,  but 
a  whimsical  and  exquisite  little  person, 
with  an  irrepressible  sense  of  humor 
— brains  too! 

"  Show  Down  "  is  delightfully  real 
— perhaps  because  Mrs.  Railey  lived 
the  book  as  well  as  wrote  it. 

Charles  Hanson  Towne  says  :  "It 
is  the  best  first  novel  I  have  read  for 
many  years." 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


REVOLUTION 

A  STORY  OF  THE  NEAR 
FUTURE  IN  ENGLAND 

BY 
J.  D.  BERESFORD 


An  intensely  moving  story,  perhaps  prophetic 
jrtainly  it  seems  so,  with  its  vivid  sweeping 
power  and  its  overmastering  sense  of  inevitability. 
This  is  in  no  way  a  picture  of  the  past;  it  is  the 
story  of  a  great  general  strike  which  paralyzes 
the  industry,  yes,  the  whole  life,  of  the  nation, 
and  of  counter-revolution  reestablishing  the  old 
but  by  then  disintegrated  and  disabled  order  of 
things.  Such  may  be  the  situation  in  sections 
of  Russia  to-day,  but  Mr.  Beresford's  book  brings 
it  much  nearer  home. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


Too  Old  for  Dolls 

By 
Anthony  M.  Ludovici 

The  story  of  a  "flapper"  too  old 
for  dolls,  scarcely  old  enough  for 
anything  else,  but  capable  of  en- 
raging her  older  sister  and  even 
her  mother  by  the  ease  with  which 
she  secures  the  admiration  of  their 
male  friends. 

"From  a  Mohawk,  from  a  sexless 
savage  with  tangled  hair  and 
blotchy  features,  she  had,  by  a 
stroke  of  the  wand,  become  meta- 
morphosed into  a  remarkably  at- 
tractive young  woman."  And 
with  the  change  came  a  discon- 
certing knowledge  of  power. 

A  very  real,  very  tense,  and  very 
modern  novel. 

G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New  York  London 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 


This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


GCT3   77 

NOV    71977fi£fi!D 


50m-12,'70(Pl251s8)2373-3A,l 


1 


